Literally just mainlining marketing material straight into whatever’s left of their rotting brains.

  • WithoutFurtherBelay
    ·
    edit-2
    1 year ago

    Donald Duck is correct here but also that’s precisely why techbros are so infuriating. They take that conclusion and then use it to disregard everything except the one thing they conveniently think isn’t based on chemicals, like free market capitalism or Eliezer “Christ the Second” Yud

    Dismissing emotions just because they are chemicals is nonsensical. It makes no sense that that alone would invalidate anything whatsoever. But these people think it does because they are conditioned by Protestantism to think that all meaning has to come from a divine and unshakeable authority. That’s why they keep reinventing God, so they have something to channel their legitimate emotions through that their delusional brain can’t invalidate.

    • UlyssesT [he/him]
      ·
      1 year ago

      My issue with, say, "love is chemicals" isn't that the experience of feeling love is neurochemical activity. It's the crude reductionist conclusion of "and therefore it is meaningless just like based Rick Sanchez said, get schwifty!" so-true

      Similarly, I don't hold a position that living brains are impossible to fully understand; it's that there's more left to know and a lot of unknowns left to explore. The implication of some people in this thread is that you must choose between "LLMs are at least as conscious as human beings or are getting there very soon" or "I am a faith healer crystal toucher sprinkled with fairy dust" which is a bullshit false dichotomy.

      • WithoutFurtherBelay
        ·
        1 year ago

        Yes, I agree completely. I had to rewrite my comment multiple times to clarify that, but yeah. Sorry :(

        • UlyssesT [he/him]
          ·
          1 year ago

          I sort of regret posting that meme because it was more cheeky and silly than an actual position I was taking, myself. The "dae le meat computers" reductionism enjoyer I was replying to (with the "therefore you must believe that LLMs are that close to sapience or else you believe in souls and are living in a demon haunted world unlike my enlightened euphoric Reddit New Atheist self" take) was abrasive enough where I was trying some levity but it didn't go over well.

          • WithoutFurtherBelay
            ·
            1 year ago

            I understand, either way the meme you posted is funny though because it would piss techbros off

            • UlyssesT [he/him]
              ·
              1 year ago

              I understand, either way the meme you posted is funny though because it would piss techbros off

              Judging by the reactions it got, it certainly did. sit-back-and-enjoy

    • sooper_dooper_roofer [none/use name]
      ·
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      He's not though

      life is necessarily more ordered and interesting than dead rocks

      therefore it is a good thing to create more life, both on earth and eventually to turn dead planets life-ful (if this is even possible)

      we are definitely conscious enough to at least massively increase the amount of life on earth (you could easily green all the world's deserts under ecocommunism)

        • sooper_dooper_roofer [none/use name]
          ·
          11 months ago

          I think enabling mass reproduction of plant species in the Sahara Desert is cool and good

          (and yes I've done the calculations, no the Sahara doesn't "enable" the Amazon, it's like 3 grains of sand per square foot)