Keurigs are actually pretty convenient when you’re only making one cup. The trick is to get one of the reusable filters and just use whatever coffee you like.

That’s another big reason to practice for sure, but I think it’s a stretch to call that belief.

This is a pretty broad question, it really depends on what you mean by “believe in religion”:

1. Believe that a particular holy book is literal, historical truth.

2. Believe in the moral teachings of a particular holy book and follow its practices.

3. Believe in the existence of a universal higher consciousness (God)

1 is a vocal minority, and the reasons have been sufficiently explained elsewhere in this thread.

2 is much more common, and can derive from a number of reasons. Cultural identity generally determines which holy book (and interpretation thereof) you follow, but the attraction to moral framework is deeper than cultural identity. Having a set of guidelines to inform moral behavior, and a method of alignment and focus (prayer) is very valuable.

3 is a metaphysical consideration, and pops up even in 2024 because consciousness is still a mysterious phenomenon. Every explanation leads to roughly the same conclusion: if consciousness is an emergent property of complex interconnected systems, then it stands to reason that the most complex interconnected system (the universe) is more likely than not to be conscious; if consciousness is some external force that complex systems can “tune into” like a radio, then it stands to reason that “consciousness” permeates the universe; if consciousness is something else which defies scientific description, then it stands to reason that there exists some agency to dictate the rules.

Those are, broadly, the rational explanations of consciousness of which I’m aware, and they all imply a universal consciousness of one variety or another. If you can think of another I’d love to consider it.

If you meant something else by “believe in religion”, let me know.

Frankly I’ve accepted it, minimized my interactions with the database(s), and don’t worry about it. “They” don’t have anywhere near the capacity to meaningfully process all that raw data for every person. Sure if you’re popping up red flags left and right you’ll get assigned to someone who will scrutinize you more thoroughly, but as long as you’re boring (in a traceable capacity) no one has the resources to go over all your messages with a fine-toothed comb.

If you don’t like being in a database, don’t interact with systems that lit you in a database. Drop social media, get rid of your phone, stay off the Internet. There are steps you can take to avoid extensive records in “the system”, but people generally don’t like taking them because “the system” has fun content they don’t want to miss. If you want to have your name and eat it too, just be boring.

Breakfast in America is always a fun album to play for people, because you get “Wait, this song is Supertramp too? And it’s the same album??”

I disagree here because I don’t think they’re really underrated at all. They’re fantastic, and generally rated as fantastic by most people who’ve listened to them. Maybe they’re not as popular as they could be, but they’re still pretty darn popular.

They’re aspects of the same thing: decentralization/federation. The idea of Web 3.0 is to transition from massive centralized services to distributed federated services. The Fediverse is on the social media side of things (displace entities like Facebook), crypto is on the finance side of things (displace entities like Bank of America), NFTs are supposed to be on the distribution side of things (displace entities like Ticketmaster).

Move fast and break things, I guess. My take away is that the genie isn’t going back in the bottle. Hopefully failing fast and loud gets us through the growing pains quickly, but on an individual level we’d best be vigilant and adapt to the landscape.

Frankly I’d rather these big obvious failures to insidious little hidden ones the conservative path makes. At least now we know to be skeptical. No development path is perfect, if it were more conservative we might get used to taking results at face value, leaving us more vulnerable to that inevitable failure.

Her is set in 2025

“It would be nice to develop an auxiliary sign language to bridge the accessibility gap between the hard of hearing and those who don’t learn a dedicated sign”

“You’re just as bad as the colonizers that decimated native American cultures”

Get out of here with that bad faith savior complex nonsense. Teaching indigenous people English wasn’t the problem, the problem was beating children for using their native language. I guess you think literacy is racist too because literacy requirements were used to disenfranchise black Americans, huh?

Your sanctimonious colonization comments are dripping with irony. I asked a question, directly to another person, about their opinion of the concept as a deaf/hard of hearing person. You interceded uninvited, deliberately ignored the explicitly stated context of the question (gestural languages having unique properties from verbal ones) so you could shoehorn in your opinion about a topic explicitly excluded by that context, which you smugly assumed I wasn’t familiar with, purporting the relevance by referencing authors who wrote very little about the actual topic at hand.

You want to talk about colonizers, look at your own actions here.

My goalposts are in precisely the place they started: a collection of basic international gestures to facilitate the most basic communication. Where are you jumping to colonization? Where did I say that my cultural group gets to decide what the signs are? You’re, again, wildly overestimating the scope of my proposal and jumping to ridiculous, unsubstantiated conclusions.

You get a group of signers from around the world to develop an international pidgin (like they already do informally at international gatherings) and come to consensus based on commonality. When the majority agree on a sign, use it. Where there’s little agreement, choose a new sign. No finger spelling, no complex abstract concepts, just a formalization of gestures most people could probably figure out anyway. I fail to see how that perpetuates colonization unless that’s what you’re setting out to do with your methodology.

I am familiar with the regionality of language. I don’t understand your point, you’re simultaneously saying that you can’t have universal understanding, but we have gestures we instantly understand instantly so there’s no need to codify them, but they look different.

I think you’re wildly overestimating the scope of my proposal.

It would certainly be limited and rudimentary; I wouldn’t suggest a solution exists capable of any broad nuance. But gesture is a unique variety of communication, in that it can convey “innate” meaning in ways verbal language simply cannot, except in the case of onomatopoeia. Pointing is nearly universal, smiling is nearly universal, beckoning is nearly universal. Gesture is a spatial form of communication, centered around our primary means of material interaction with the world.

Grammar and syntax aside, I’d argue that it would be possible to assemble a vocabulary of universal concepts (eat, drink, sleep, travel, me, you, communicate, cooperate, come here, go away, etc). Certainly not a language for extended detailed conversation, but a codification and extension of gestures which are already nearly universal by virtue of their innate implications alone. Enough to communicate that you’re hungry, but not enough to send for takeout.

A universal language, at the level of any other sophisticated language, is obviously impossible. A formal codification of simple gestures to communicate at the most basic human concepts is much more doable.

I know this is a point of some contention among the deaf community, but how do you feel about the development of a “standard” international sign? Personally, and I’m speaking as a fully hearing person, I think a basic international sign should be developed and taught to everyone. Not only to facilitate communication with the hard of hearing, but also in loud environments and with those who don’t share a spoken language.

It’s my understanding that a large portion of the deaf community is hostile to the idea of a universal sign from a cultural perspective, since each regional sign has cultural content. However I think it’s a potential solution for numerous issues, with more pros than cons.

More of a “Whoops” guy myself

I don’t understand this deliberately pessimistic perspective I keep seeing around AI development that stubbornly ignores every other technological development in history. Even just considering the singular transformer architecture, we’re still seeing significant and novel improvement. In just a couple years we’ve watched the technology go from basic predictive text to high quality image and even video generation, now to real time robotics control.

The transformer architecture is incredibly powerful and flexible. The notion that the basic technology staying the same is an indication of stagnation is as ridiculous as if you said the same of transistors half a century ago. Most of the improvement we see in the near future will be through recursive and multi-modal applications, meta-architechtural developments that don’t require the core technology to change at all.

It’s still very much AI for a while. The current incarnation is still in relative infancy, and will only continue to get more capable and disruptive. We’re starting to see the integration with robotics, this is only going to become more significant with time.

It’s likely that the next big thing will be a consequence of AI.

To be fair, the manifesto notes some very valid observations. The conclusions, and definitely the praxis, may be wrong but the core idea that modern civilization is at odds with human nature has only gotten more obvious since it was written. An-cap is absolutely not the answer, and would definitely make things worse, but there is a valid question.