PICARD: Data, shields up
DATA: Brilliant! Shields can reduce damage we sustain. Not immunity. Not hubris. Just prudence. It's not precaution—it's strategy.
[camera shakes]
WORF: HULL BREACHES ON NINE DECKS
DATA: Here's what happened: you told me to raise shields, and I didn't
Endings are always the most vivid. The thing about Tolkien and Homer though - they always start at the middle of the story... it's the beginnings which are so rarely captured in enough detail to be useful to us. So, where to look? Where's our founding mythos? What's our Gondor? Indulge a mid who still needs to believe in the power of visualization ;)
@sean_from_earth@stephen_wolfram 👀 interesting stuff, if some form of information is preserved right up to - and even beyond - the end, as iiuc @penrose speculates it may, then privileging knowledge seems sensible
@sean_from_earth@stephen_wolfram And in that recognition is the possibility to reveal the deeper mystery; the principle and vector of the very telos which seems to driving it all - the oscillation of substrates, the compulsion towards form, the accleration towards phase transition boundaries...
@sean_from_earth@stephen_wolfram The internet is almost certainly above that threshold. Which means the question isn not about whether it can support equivalently complex computation to a mind - it already does. Rather: it''s whether or not the observer can recognize it.
@sean_from_earth and what was our own substrate? Early amino-acid chaining (ie the origins of organic life) was most likely facilitated by silicate crystal lattices in clay soils, allowing stable bonds -> peptides -> proteins...
Every single person involved in a polarizing case like Dalton’s—judges, attorneys, witnesses, jurors—is acutely aware that there is a safe verdict and an unsafe one
“Safe” means that your city won’t be burned to the ground. You will not be personally targeted for reprisals. You will not have to look over your shoulder. Your life will continue as it was after this event is complete
This mutual awareness among all parties means there is no need to form a conspiracy to achieve a particular outcome. Everyone’s incentives are aligned. Everyone wants to be safe
If the defendant is a non, it is safe to acquit. If the defendant is White, it is safe to convict
@NormanDodd_knew Running local inference is the 1903 automobile. Weird flex now, personal sovereignty later, and the roads are still being paved - with the chance to become the mechanic along the way.
@acadianlemur I'm enjoying this - the social dimension is particularly interesting.
Would it be cursed to wish for some sort of cross-profile highlighting of reductions - even if they're not particularly special... 'reductiones communes' ?