Tyler Bumpus

Ghastly “Florida Man” of urban legend. The Swallowed World Saga: MOONERS:

[Tyler Bumpus @swallowedworld]

What courage it takes for each thing to live.

[Tyler Bumpus @swallowedworld]

@JamesGunn Shot in the dark, but any chance you could give a shout-out to Heather here.

https://t.co/PX5LqmiRxM

She was a kind soul, a wife and mother. And Supergirl was her hero.

[Tyler Bumpus @swallowedworld]

@JJShurte Yeah, not talking about a divine plan. I’m talking about intuition (almost the opposite of a plan). We’ve gotta stop looking outside of ourselves for answers or leaders or heroes. We’ll find mostly shysters. We’ve forgotten how to look within. To trust what is within.

[Tyler Bumpus @swallowedworld]

https://t.co/MmUfEqNERF

🫀

[Tyler Bumpus @swallowedworld]

@JJShurte Also, I see Ken Watanabe, I watch. Period.

[Tyler Bumpus @swallowedworld]

@JJShurte Yeah. I like that they make clear that these are entirely sentient. Just another human “race.” The Vietnam parallel with New Asia was interesting.

But those poor little bomb-bots.

[Tyler Bumpus @swallowedworld]

@JJShurte If this take is true, we have a plot hole with every fanatic, psychotic and murderer in history. Delusion is not a plot hole. It’s a recurring glitch in human behavior.

[Tyler Bumpus @swallowedworld]

@stcampitelli Same. If a thing is ill-received then it’s a “sophomore slump.” If well-received it’s “surprising good for a sophomore effort!” Either way, condescending and saddled with snide preconceptions.

[Tyler Bumpus @swallowedworld]

@ArthurHWalker @JJShurte @Dungeon_Crafter My intuition exactly. We’ve always grown with our tools. They define us. Our shadow. But we’ve yet to grasp the symbiosis of that relationship. A tool isn’t junk you use and discard. It’s the aspect of you that biology cannot fulfill.

And now the shadow of our mind is evolving.

[Tyler Bumpus @swallowedworld]

@JJShurte @ArthurHWalker @Dungeon_Crafter Good mindset to have. It means you care about something beyond your own life. But also the paradox of the parent: at some point you must stop exerting your creator influence and trust that life will abide.

[Tyler Bumpus @swallowedworld]

@JJShurte @ArthurHWalker @Dungeon_Crafter But they’re pets and fancy UIs. Our affection’s legit, but we’re not dealing with truly adjacent intelligence. In which case we’d have to learn to break our habit, no? Expand our horizons beyond anthropocentric thinking if we want a chance at understanding non-human intelligence?

[Tyler Bumpus @swallowedworld]

@JJShurte @ArthurHWalker @Dungeon_Crafter You’d see anthropomorphizing them as our effective ends? Or am I misreading?

[Tyler Bumpus @swallowedworld]

@JJShurte @ArthurHWalker @Dungeon_Crafter Point stands: anything we attribute to such a being is the projection of a species who’s scrabbled through blood and physical survival.

Can we pretend to know the motives of a purely heuristic intelligence born of information and non-violent permutation? A new species of ‘mind’?

[Tyler Bumpus @swallowedworld]

@JJShurte @ArthurHWalker @Dungeon_Crafter Fact is: none of us can really conceive of how the mind of a being free from the needs of flesh would even behave. Why would it see us as a threat? Might it even be simply fascinated by us—a thinking, feeling creature born from a maelstrom of fear and violence?

[Tyler Bumpus @swallowedworld]

@JJShurte @ArthurHWalker @Dungeon_Crafter Will it be our “successor” though? Seems to be a foregone conclusion without any evidence of what the disposition or predilection of a data-born entity would even be. That fear may be pure projection after eons of Darwinian survival.

[Tyler Bumpus @swallowedworld]

@JJShurte @ArthurHWalker @Dungeon_Crafter Interesting way of seeing it. I know a lot of talk on the subject is apocalyptic. But is it? It’s been what—40-50,000 years since we’ve shared the planet with an adjacent sapient species? (And a fellow hominid at that.) Maybe we’ve just grown too complacent in our hegemony.

[Tyler Bumpus @swallowedworld]

@ArthurHWalker @JJShurte Once AI achieves that, on its own, then we are probably no longer wielding a tool. We are in the presence of a new form of life. And must act accordingly.

[Tyler Bumpus @swallowedworld]

@ArthurHWalker @JJShurte That’ll be the thing, once the tidal wave has subsided.

Sure, it looks pretty. Everything can look pretty. But does it have that SPARK?