iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

I will also say that I sympathize with people who react to this stuff in a non-rational way. It's difficult to be pragmatic/results based when you don't know what the thing is and when it is constantly changing in profound ways, very quickly.

Well I don't think it's overly dramatic to suggest that we will learn more about what it means to be human by studying whatever this ends up being. If I was a philosopher right now, I would already be working on this.

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Stavvy's World is the best. He gives such earnest and good advice, and he works through the thought process right there so you can see it all. His guests are often surprised that they're called upon to give real advice hahaha.

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It's not a regular computer program, I agree. But what is it exactly and how "human" is it, that we do not know and will not know for a while. They're still developing too rapidly to know that and even then, it will take decades to digest it, as it did with the printing press, the internet, etc.

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It's hard not to get into deep philosophical questions when talking about this stuff. However, I think there's a real possibility that people don't know how to talk about this new technology and naturally talk about it in a way that occludes what it actually is. We've seen this before!

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The things that make AI so powerful right now are the things that are most machine-like. The capability to digest data very quickly, the persistence, the ability to have over a thousand copies of an agent working on a single problem. If anything, anthropomorphizing points away from their real power.

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So who was the first Englishman then? Gildas Badonicas? Was it Bede? Couldn't be William the Conqueror right? How about George I? Or better yet, Queen Victoria - very important not to erase her German heritage, no? None of this heritage bullshit actually makes any sense in historical context.

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It's not like Odysseus doesn't know the way home. He does know it and this is demonstrated several times. Once, he is driven all the way home only to be yanked away again. The problem is that they keep getting in their own way. A tale as old as time and Google maps can't help with that.

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Actually it's an ironic tragedy that the example of the Holocaust does not forestall the Israeli government's atrocities. I think Frum is twisting himself into a pretzel so as to shield himself from the Israeli government's atrocious acts.

In addition to being derpy in both his visual and literal presentation, he cites zero academic credentials. He's the founder of a school but traces his time spent in the wilderness. Obviously this is a fake passthrough, but taking it seriously, can you not find someone with any actual experience?

tacitus dicit @ctacitus.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Yeah it's like how do you think structural racism happens? It's bigoted people doing bigoted things. Are they bigoted by accident (ie unintentionally)? No, there must be an ideology there because the actions aren't accidental. Theory is great but racist acts do not occur in the abstract.

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Also, relax dude. No need to get your back up. I'm being nice here.

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Very good! Maybe you could drop some fundamental texts for OP which would be helpful. Not for me - I have a Phd as well in a separate field and while I consider myself a dabbler, I've dabbled plenty. Nevertheless, spreading knowledge about important topics is part of what we trained to do.

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I'm not OP my friend, just an interested observer.

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Ah so I was right and it was just a guess. It's true that most people actually do not read about things like epistemology, ontology, phenomenology. Then again, not good to throw stones from a glass house, so I hope you're well read on those topics!

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Do you think this answers the question about how you know what that person means when they say "thinks"? It doesn't address that at all. I'm going to have to assume that this is just an attempt to divert attention from the fact that you're simply bullshitting, unless proven otherwise.

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I'm curious as to why you think you know that based on what this person said. Maybe you think that most people don't have definitions for these things, in which case you're taking your chances. In any case, it seems like a baseless claim.

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tacitus dicit @ctacitus.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

Our standards are so low for what constitutes discourse that Karp can sloppily prattle then land on a dick joke punchline - am I expected to take this person who presents as a total moron seriously? The proof's in the pudding and a walking twitter feed does no deserve anyone's attention.

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David Brooks struggles to exhibit the intellectual weight one might expect from an airport book. It says a lot about our society's appreciation of philosophy or lack thereof that he's the one interviewing philosophers. A sad state of affairs.

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tacitus dicit @ctacitus.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

I know. It was a well of patriotic goodwill that was tapped for Desert Storm too. I remember people being on board during Desert Storm and I then remember W going back to the well for that one for the Iraq war and it feeling very forced.

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tacitus dicit @ctacitus.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

The propaganda response to 9/11 was to use social pressure to enforce the kind of "tie a yellow ribbon round the old oak tree" patriotism of Bush 1 during Desert Storm (and earlier eras) through guilt and fear. As you say, the feeling wasn't unity. I felt it to be coercive and cynical.

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tacitus dicit @ctacitus.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

In the past, someone like this would be too ashamed to expose their childish and invidious views to admit them publicly. Bring back shame - this guy should be embarrassed enough never to tweet again but he probably thinks he won this one. Very sad.

tacitus dicit @ctacitus.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

It's a huge perspective shift and has made me change the way I drive a car too. It's corny maybe but it's like the scales have fallen from my eyes (using that simile instead of the tarnished red pill/blue pill which is probably better but what can you do).

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tacitus dicit @ctacitus.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

We have some of the dumbest "smart people" in the world right now. It's a heyday for idiots who think without depth or reflection - all surface no substance.

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tacitus dicit @ctacitus.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

Wow Mark Sanford is still out there apparently

tacitus dicit @ctacitus.bsky.social · 10/08/2026

Just a propped up coin operated mouthpiece selling deadly conspiratorial lies - that's what the POTUS is right now.

Hahaha wow. I see that now. Amazing how posting can go horribly wrong sometimes. Sorry for being weird. Time to shut the computer and go ride my bike!

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Thanks for nothing! Not sure why you bothered to type all that when you had nothing to say. Have a good one.

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Oh you're one of those people who think that no one should ever say the word Nazi. Or that's what I guess, because your bullshit vagueposting says absolutely nothing. I bet it makes you feel very superior though, so that's nice.

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Cute comment you must be so proud. Do you actually have something you can say clearly, or are you just fucking around?

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That assumption and its concomitant "logic" looks a lot like the "stabbed in the back" narrative and the glaringly apparent logic that follows from that, does it not?

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No doubt. But the candidates are different and the candidate quality is very different.

I think that in Miller's deranged mind, this is ultimately a security issue and therefore falls under the "defense of the homeland," therefore it can be addressed as such. It's nonsensical unless you're a Nazi.

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tacitus dicit @ctacitus.bsky.social · 05/08/2026

I look at what MI Dems are doing, then I look at what's going on in the WI gov primary and it seems like a photonegative. The WI gov primary feels to me like we're sleepwalking to a disaster, but I hope I'm wrong.

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This reminds me of the Curb Your Enthusiasm where Larry argues there's a "good" Hodgkin's disease.

tacitus dicit @ctacitus.bsky.social · 05/08/2026

The podcast Past Lives by @patrickwyman.bsky.social has several podcasts on slavery throughout history. It is excellently researched and narrated. The upshot: there is no "good" slavery.

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tacitus dicit @ctacitus.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

There's this book called The Bright Ages that might be a good start

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tacitus dicit @ctacitus.bsky.social · 27/07/2026

I'm fully convinced that most people hazily associate the fall of the Roman republic, a thing that did happen, with the decline of the Roman empire, which lasted a really long time and had its ups and downs but no single precipitous fall.

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tacitus dicit @ctacitus.bsky.social · 24/07/2026

Totally. If he was dead and they were covering it up, that would be incredibly stupid and they're evil, not stupid. He's just incapacitated and they don't want to hear calls for his resignation so they're just powering through. That's my take for what it's worth.

tacitus dicit @ctacitus.bsky.social · 24/07/2026

Not dead but no longer able to function as a senator (ie unable to make it to the floor to cast a vote).

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tacitus dicit @ctacitus.bsky.social · 24/07/2026

Mona Charen has hardly changed her views, despite the calamity of the last decade. She is the worst (second only to Frum, but he's not on Bulwark's payroll I don't think). Others have changed (Miller, Longwell, JVL) to some extent. I don't expect them to become lefties but they can be allies.

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tacitus dicit @ctacitus.bsky.social · 23/07/2026

My 6 and 4 year olds are into it. They also like "guess who? purdue," which they pronounce Peru. That has led to me introducing them to Peruvian chicken joints.