モンキー

[The Scientific Lens @LensScientific]

Harmonic oscillation in a levitated water drop

Ultrasonic standing waves levitate a water droplet and flatten it into a disk. Modulating the sound at its resonance frequency excites harmonic shape modes creating rotating "star drops"

[𝕐o̴g̴ @Yoda4ever]

The King watching over his Kingdom..🐈👑😅

[Paul Graham @paulg]

I have the nagging feeling that there's going to be something very obvious about AI once it crosses a certain threshold that I could foresee now if I tried harder. Not that it's going to enslave us. I already worry about that. I mean something subtler.

[Alex Robinson @arobinsontweets]

Dear TPOT interested in bio-electric hacking, consciousness, psychedelics, physics, neuroscience, and body energies / woo:

I learned to heal myself of scoliosis, kyphosis, and a lifelong neurodegenerative condition by discovering to how to reprogram my body.

For somatic programming, I humbly offer an ontology and a description of the interface from my own first person experience. 🧵

[The Cultural Tutor @culturaltutor]

The Colosseum is incredible, but it isn't unique.

Because there are over 200 Ancient Roman arenas, on three different continents, many of which held over 50,000 people.

And the Romans even built one stadium with a capacity of 150,000...

[The Cultural Tutor @culturaltutor]

It's actually an extension to the rear of the City Palace built by Sawai Jai Singh, connected to the women's quarters.

Even though it looks like the grand front, notice that there is no doorway — we are looking at the back of the palace.

[Ben Nash @bennash]

This video was made with the not-yet-released Sora AI technology just announced from OpenAi. This changes everything. It's 27 seconds from a text prompt.

Here is their prompt:
Prompt: A white and orange tabby cat is seen happily darting through a dense garden, as if chasing something. Its eyes are wide and happy as it jogs forward, scanning the branches, flowers, and leaves as it walks. The path is narrow as it makes its way between all the plants. the scene is captured from a ground-level angle, following the cat closely, giving a low and intimate perspective. The image is cinematic with warm tones and a grainy texture. The scattered daylight between the leaves and plants above creates a warm contrast, accentuating the cat’s orange fur. The shot is clear and sharp, with a shallow depth of field.

[Aadit Sheth @aaditsh]

16. Interactive 3D modeling

[Roko 🐉 @RokoMijic]

Ted Kaczynski had an insight: technology doesn't make things better, it makes them weirder and higher variance. You are not supposed to spend the prime of your life photocopying stuff and doing PowerPoints. You're supposed to chop wood, hunt and maybe wage war. Women are supposed to be pregnant most of the time when they're 16-40. Modern society is a sort of weird factory farming of humans (and the same goes for medieval societies - we're not supposed to farm, we're supposed to hunt and gather).

Respectable society tells us a story about how technology makes society "better". Well, it does in some ways. Medicine is good. Clean water and reliable food is good. Being crammed into a cubicle and worshipping the photocopier is bad. Technology doesn't give us more free time, it gives us more stress and more bizarre, unnatural experiences. And there's variation in how bad technological society is: if you live in a poor country and work in a sweatshop, that's really bad and in some sense constitutes an S-Risk from the point of view of the hunter gatherer human. The same could be said about certain dictatorships like late-stage USSR, or periods of massive strife like the world wars. And further back in the industrial past, it was even worse.

The Yudkowskian worry about ASI is that it will turn us into paperclips. Kurzweil sold many people on the dream that technology will make us immortal and fully satisfied in all material ways.

But perhaps a more realistic prediction is that as technology changes the world, it changes the kind of person and the kind of culture that's optimal. The past 60 years have seen a shift where many rich countries are essentially killing off their own population and replacing them with immigrants - note that we don't have to take a stance on whether this is good or bad, just that it is happening. Immigrants are "more optimal". The country gets the people, but it doesn't have to do the work to make them. They also have some "useful" political properties. The past 10-15 years has seen "cisgender" people replaced by transgender people. Transgender people are "more optimal" based on the society we are in now. Why? Well we don't need cis men because we don't have wars and we have mechanical force from machines, and we don't need cis women because we get new people from immigration. We don't have to like or dislike this, we just have to notice it. The best person for the 21st century has very different properties than the best person for the 19th century or the 9th century or the 90th century BC.

Rapid technological change may simply accelerate this process. Society may soon start deciding that it doesn't need people at all. The insights and skills of all people can be learned by a machine learning model, and then deployed as needed, detached from any particular life-history. The fundamental logic here comes first, and then justifications to get rid of people will come second.

What will happen to people in the ML-dominated world? It'll probably be messy and complex, but the start (now) has people, and the end stage (2200, say) may not have any people. Just like how the start of the immigration era (1955) had ethnostates, and the current intermediate stage is messy and complex, but we all admit that the end stage will not have ethnostates and ~all people will have an arbitrary legal citizenship that has no connection to their ancestry.

Some will complain and fight back, but they will be swimming against the tide. Others will celebrate the end of human beings. Think about how much more efficient the workplace will be if workers are not people! People cause problems, we can just replace ourselves with ML algos to do everything.

Ted Kazynski's insight didn't actually go deep enough. The true horror of realizing that reality is amoral is that if technology advances far enough, it will convergently lead to human extinction.

Yudowskian worries are just another aspect of this fundamental horror.

🔲

[Prof. Feynman @ProfFeynman]

"Be a free thinker and don't accept everything you hear as truth. Be critical and evaluate what you believe in."

-- Aristotle (384 - 322 BC)

[Prof. Feynman @ProfFeynman]

Discovery is seeing what everybody else has seen, and thinking what nobody else has thought.

-- Albert Szent-Györgyi (1893 - 1986)

[Connor Tomlinson @Con_Tomlinson]

The "Grow up, liberal snowflake!" responses to this are surface-level critiques

They ignore the deep sense of alienation from work and prosperity that young people feel

If self-described conservatives ignore this, they guarantee the destruction of tradition

Let me explain 👇🏻

This woman is identifying the antagonism between work and social life that our modern economic structure produces

Guessing at her job: she likeky works in the knowledge economy, if in an office in a city. (Marketing, consulting, etc.) So, it's a job which, if eliminated, would make no difference to meeting the basic subsistence needs of human beings. Implicitly, she knows it isn't meaningful or necessary

Her comment about the commuting time and working hours is correct. For women especially, cities, after dark, are unsafe. We did not evolve to live among so many transient strangers, in sterile concrete environments. It is unsettling moving at a fast pace through an ugly landscape, surrounded by people you cannot trust and who you cannot defend yourself against if they attack you

It is perplexing that "conservatives" insult her as being weak for stating she does not want to live in an unsafe city, work a useless job, and have starting a family delayed indefinitely because the pressures that time and cost which are placed on her by the modern economy

This working set-up is predicated on vapid consumerism, unsustainable national debt, and is a relative blip in human history -- anathema to our nature

It is a cruelty inflicted on this woman that she does a job that the majority of her life is not spent enmeshed in and working *for* a loving family

This does not mean nobody should work. Women worked, in pre-Industrial society, in and for their home. They were also cultural custodians, and wove the moral texture of their community. They had a different kind of power and a sense of belonging than the narrow definition of "empowerment" and "community" provided by materialistic liberal feminism

This is about who you are working for and what kind of work you are doing

Is your work important, and who are you accountable to?

If not for your family, then who?

Hypothetical progress and the endless pursuit of prosperity mean nothing to a generation who cannot afford a place to call home, or have time to plant their roots

It baffles me that anyone who values family, recognises sex differences, and criticises the managerial state is mocking this woman for wanting a wholesome traditional life

You are misreading the vibe of how she speaks what is true, and you will never stop losing for it

[Charlie Kirk @charliekirk11]

A year after Elon Musk bought Twitter, he finally explains WHY:

He says that the niche ideology that turned San Francisco into a "zombie apocolypse" would historically be geographically isolated, and the fallout would therefore be limited. But Twitter gave that philosophy an "information technology weapon," which it could use to spread that mind virus to the whole planet unopposed.

Musk: "In order for the mind virus to propogate it must suppress oppossing viewpionts."

Rogan: "Because it doesn't stand up against scrutiny?"

Musk: "Correct."

Musk cared enough about stopping this virus that he spent $40 billion to do so.

[Physics In History @PhysInHistory]

The most iconic Physics and Mathematics lectures/videos you must watch.

A Thread 👇

[Eric Mourant @ericmourant]

#JAPER Dive deep on this
#GPT4 Life is an unfathomable ocean of experiences, offering its vast expanses to those who dare to plunge into its depths. Too often, we are entangled in a web of societal expectations and norms, which shape our vision of success, achievement, and purpose. However, there exists a refreshingly unconventional approach to navigating this mysterious voyage of life: "Fall in love with some activity, and do it!"

The idea of falling in love with an activity resonates with an essential aspect of human nature, our capacity for passion. Love, when directed towards an activity, transforms it from a mundane task into an engaging and fulfilling pursuit. It's the photographer waiting patiently for hours for that perfect shot, the artist losing track of time in front of a canvas, the researcher poring over data late into the night, and the gardener whose day is made by the sprouting of a new seedling.

When we fall in love with an activity, it becomes more than just a pastime. It starts shaping our identity, fuels our energy, and stimulates our creativity. This passion-driven approach towards life resonates with the saying, "Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life." Passion transforms work into joy, obligation into desire.

The idea that "nobody ever figures out what life is all about, and it doesn't matter," is a liberating perspective. It frees us from the constraints of finding a single, universally acceptable meaning or purpose to life. Instead, it allows us to seek our individual purpose, to find what gives us satisfaction and fulfillment, to explore what intrigues us, to revel in the beauty of the journey rather than solely fixating on the destination.

As we delve deeper into this perspective, the world around us transforms into an endless sea of opportunities for exploration. Everything, be it an ant's diligence or the cosmos's vastness, becomes interesting if examined with enough curiosity. It's in the depth of exploration that we encounter the thrill of discovery, the joy of learning, and the satisfaction of understanding. Depth in our activities leads to richness in our experiences.

Working hard on the things we like becomes not a chore, but a natural extension of our passion. It no longer is labor but an investment of time and energy in honing our skills, feeding our curiosity, and expanding our understanding. It shifts the paradigm of work from being a means to an end to becoming an end in itself.

"Don't think about what you want to be, but what you want to do," is a powerful shift in perspective. Often, we are conditioned to define ourselves by socially accepted titles and roles. This paradigm encourages us to focus on the process rather than the end state. It's about the act of painting, not just becoming a painter; the act of writing, not merely being an author; the joy of discovering, not just being a scientist. By focusing on what we want to do, we align our actions with our passions, leading to a life filled with authentic experiences.

While encouraging immersion in passion, the philosophy does not overlook the reality of societal structures. It acknowledges the necessity of maintaining a minimum commitment to societal expectations. This commitment ensures a balance between personal fulfillment and societal engagement, allowing individuals the freedom to pursue their passions without alienating themselves from the world.

This philosophy encourages a passion-driven life, fostering creativity, growth, and personal fulfillment. It frees us from the need for an absolute, universally accepted purpose, allowing the exploration of our individual paths. By embracing the depth of experiences, focusing on doing rather than being, and maintaining a balance with societal structures, we can navigate this mysterious voyage of life with passion, curiosity, and joy. After all, it's not just about the destination but the journey itself.

[World of Statistics @stats_feed]

Gross national income (GNI) per capita:

🇧🇲 Bermuda: $125,240
🇱🇮 Liechtenstein: $116,600
🇳🇴 Norway: $95,510
🇱🇺 Luxembourg: $91,200
🇨🇭 Switzerland: $89,450
🇮🇪 Ireland: $81,070
🇺🇸 USA: $76,370
🇩🇰 Denmark: $73,200
🇶🇦 Qatar: $70,500
🇮🇸 Iceland: $68,220
🇸🇬 Singapore: $67,200
🇸🇪 Sweden: $62,990
🇦🇺 Australia: $60,430
🇳🇱 Netherlands: $57,430
🇦🇹 Austria: $56,140
🇮🇱 Israel: $54,650
🇫🇮 Finland: $54,360
🇩🇪 Germany: $53,390
🇨🇦 Canada: $52,960
🇦🇪 UAE: $48,950
🇬🇧 UK: $48,890
🇧🇪 Belgium: $48,700
🇫🇷 France: $45,860
🇯🇵 Japan: $42,440
🇮🇹 Italy: $37,700
🇰🇷 South Korea: $35,990
🇪🇸 Spain: $31,680
🇸🇦 Saudi Arabia: $27,590
🇨🇿 Czechia: $26,590
🇵🇹 Portugal: $25,890
🇬🇷 Greece: $21,740
🇵🇱 Poland: $18,350
🇻🇪 Venezuela: $13,010
🇨🇳 China: $12,859
🇷🇺 Russia: $12,830
🇦🇷 Argentina: $11,620
🇹🇷 Türkiye: $10,590
🇲🇽 Mexico: $10,410
🇧🇷 Brazil: $8,140
🇿🇦 South Africa: $6,780
🇨🇴 Colombia: $6,510
🇮🇩 Indonesia: $4,580
🇪🇬 Egypt: $4,100
🇻🇳 Vietnam: $4,010
🇮🇳 India: $2,380
🇰🇪 Kenya: $2,170
🇳🇬 Nigeria: $2,140
🇵🇰 Pakistan: $1,580
🇳🇵 Nepal: $1,340
🇧🇫 Burkina Faso: $840
🇾🇪 Yemen: $840
🇳🇪 Niger: $610
🇦🇫 Afghanistan: $390
🇧🇮 Burundi: $240

[Wise Advice @wiseadvicesumit]

@elonmusk

[Jeremy Wayne Tate @JeremyTate41]

Modern man is in a terrible predicament. He is helplessly enamored with the beauty of what the old world built, yet despises the beliefs that inspired them to build it.

[Jose Muniz @joseletemuniz]

This is the biggest tyre cemetery in the world in Kuwait.
This fire is always on and can be seen from outerspace.
But Irish cows are responsible for climate change.