iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Daniel Elstein @danielelstein.bsky.social · 2h

You know I think I'm misremembering, because trying to find what I was looking for here all I could find was a discussion (exactly as you say) from the Disputation of Paris, so not Ramban at all. I think I just confused the disputations because I read up on them so long ago.

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Daniel Elstein @danielelstein.bsky.social · 3h

I seem to remember this came up in the Barcelona disputation, can't remember exactly what Nahmanides had to say about it.

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Daniel Elstein @danielelstein.bsky.social · 3h

Oh that makes a lot more sense, was very confused for a minute

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Daniel Elstein @danielelstein.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

We cannot fully comprehend because draconic hoarding is an alien ethical practice. An interesting thing to note though is that draconic hoarding presupposes the existence of others who trade, which makes it in some way parasitic on the practices/values of others.

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Daniel Elstein @danielelstein.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

I don't agree with the inference. Dragons hoard (they do *not* trade), but the idea is that they are not indiscriminate hoarders: they only hoard what others consider to be valuable. To hoard worthless items would be unsatisfying/crass/disgraceful.

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Daniel Elstein @danielelstein.bsky.social · 12/10/2026

That's pretty unfair to bonobos imho

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Daniel Elstein @danielelstein.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

Then it is actually not silly for them to try to prepare for that. I am so frustrated with people who claim to be experts mocking others for having some epistemic modesty.

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Daniel Elstein @danielelstein.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

That's because there is nothing approaching conclusive evidence against functionalism. So if Anthropic's view is that there's a reasonable chance that functionalism is correct, and there's also a reasonable chance of them building something with the relevant functions in the medium term...

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Daniel Elstein @danielelstein.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

Yes, I think some people are absurdly overconfident about their views in this area. Consciousness is deeply mysterious! It's fine to be pro or anti functionalism about it. But the people who are anti functionalism should still think there's a reasonable chance functionalism is true.

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Daniel Elstein @danielelstein.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

I'm just glad that this didn't end up being a blood libel thing

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hailey @hailey.at · 09/10/2026

so people can say this, but i would also highlight that anthropic models _are_ the most well aligned when it comes to bigotry and abuse. anthropic clearly does not like violence against women or minorities either this is not the reason to come up with to be mad at anthropic imo

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Daniel Elstein @danielelstein.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

Yes, but clearly worth it! You don't agree?

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Daniel Elstein @danielelstein.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

I agree that opposing antisemitism has some costs (what political commitment doesn't?). I just don't see why those costs aren't worth paying. If Corbyn could be defeated, I don't see why we should be scared of Piker.

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Daniel Elstein @danielelstein.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

I hear Morgan McSweeney is available if they want some advice 🤪

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Daniel Elstein @danielelstein.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

For all Koestler's personal awfulness, "Darkness at Noon" is a great exploration of this psychology.

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Dan Neidle @danneidle.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

Kemi Badenoch wants to exempt the family home from inheritance tax. But that creates a perverse incentive for elderly people to *upsize* to save IHT. That could double the cost of the policy, and push £100bn+ from savings into housing. A 🧵 on bad tax cuts.

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Daniel Elstein @danielelstein.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

Ah this is very unfair, I'm sure he'd be happy to read to Claude, doing all the voices etc. Much more impactful than reading to his kid and just as fun 🌚

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Daniel Elstein @danielelstein.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

The people who could explain why this motion was crazy had been discredited (in the eyes of the delegates). Discrediting the experts is crucial to crankery and conspiracism taking hold. Many such cases.

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Daniel Elstein @danielelstein.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

Definitely won't put tariffs on marmalade.

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Daniel Elstein @danielelstein.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

It's rare that blocking a relatively serious news source based on one post is justified, but yeah, that's a block for Zeteo.

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Daniel Elstein @danielelstein.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

A: Cosmopolitanism is the ideal. We should do away with non-cosmopolitan polities. B: But the world is non-ideal in lots of ways. Maybe that is relevant to the existence of those non-cosmopolitan polities. A: I would simply make the world ideal.

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Daniel Elstein @danielelstein.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

And (arguably) this isn't even the worst thing that happened to a member of his family as a result.

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Daniel Elstein @danielelstein.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

To be fair I think the article is focused on the case where you are remembering the dollar bill rather than looking at it, and in that case I'm not sure what if anything is in your visual cortex (may be variable because of degrees of aphantasia). But it's still a representation!

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Daniel Elstein @danielelstein.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

But still, there is some way my brain is organised that represents (not very faithfully!) a dollar bill, and that is all it means to say that I have a representation of a dollar bill in my brain.

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Daniel Elstein @danielelstein.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

I think the basic error here is a crude view of representation. It is of course true that my inner representation of a dollar bill is nothing much like the way in which a computer might store an image of a dollar bill.

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Daniel Elstein @danielelstein.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Oh right, gotta get back to CK3!

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Daniel Elstein @danielelstein.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Oh I don't know, I'm remembering a thing that I glimpsed 20 years ago, the game must have had some objective (which wasn't really the thing I said, because I would not have played the game properly). But maybe it would be easy to recreate if I actually knew the rules!

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Daniel Elstein @danielelstein.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Why are Aldi and Lidl so different??

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Daniel Elstein @danielelstein.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

I vaguely remember a board game I wanted to play where you could make a custom version of Christianity from your favourite heresies. Not sure what a Jewish equivalent would be like.

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Daniel Elstein @danielelstein.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

I mean they all accepted the Nicene creed, which could easily be rejected on various grounds, so the similarities between them are certainly more significant than their differences.

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Daniel Elstein @danielelstein.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

If the problem is that one nation/ethnic group is systematically oppressed by another in virtue of the latter's control of a state, it isn't unreasonable to respond to this by thinking, "hey, we should have our own state". It doesn't have to be the best solution in order not to be racist!

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Daniel Elstein @danielelstein.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

What these people are really confused about is the distinction between ideal and non-ideal theory. Let's just grant that in ideal theory ethnostates are bad, irrational etc. But 19th century nationalism was often (usually?) couched as a response to existing injustice.

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Daniel Elstein @danielelstein.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

I think there really are a lot of people who defend the Z=R claim by insisting that 19th century nationalism is/was always racism. Obviously many such people are not sincere in saying this, but some are - they love to say that "ethnostates" are *obviously* racist and I kind of see what they mean.

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Daniel Elstein @danielelstein.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

And then the narrative was overtaken a few months later by the Hungarian revolution. So we might say that the understanding that the Soviet project was a continuation of Russian imperalism was solidified (except among tankies) in 1956, but maybe the deportations played only a modest role in this?

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Daniel Elstein @danielelstein.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

As I understand it, the reaction to Secret Speech in the West was in part due to the national deportations that Khrushchev exposed and condemned. It's just that this was alongside stuff about the purges etc., so the particular crimes against the nations didn't get a separate reckoning.

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Daniel Elstein @danielelstein.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Maybe you think leftists should be (and should have been) more bothered by how much hypocritical bullshit the Soviets produced on the subject of nationalism and racism.

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Daniel Elstein @danielelstein.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Is it just that Russian oppression of the nations within their imperium is seen as independent of communism - a line running through the whole of modern Russian history?

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Daniel Elstein @danielelstein.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

The worst version of this is where there's a performative announcement of victory: "look this person was rude to me [let's not mention what I said to them first], so you can see that they are bad and wrong and cannot defend their opinion rationally".

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Daniel Sugarman @danielsugarman.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Although it feels like I am shouting into the void about this sometimes, I want to share some further thoughts on the “Zionism is Racism” motion which the Green Party is due to debate in the next 16 hours. Just to address various points which I think people in general should know. A thread:

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Daniel Elstein @danielelstein.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

Theory choice when theory is underdetermined by data (i.e. always) is still part of science, not some Bayesian alternative to it. Maybe competing views about theoretical virtues can be modelled as different priors - is that the idea??

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Daniel Elstein @danielelstein.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

Oh this annoys me! You can see this is a false dichotomy by reflecting more on the QM example. To say that the Everett interpretation is more elegant than the Copenhagen interpretation is just to say that it is more parsimonious in one way, and the question is just what kind of parsimony matters.

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Tim Carmody @tcarmody.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

This is the funniest thing I've seen today, possibly ever

A tweet by SarahStarberry that says "oh god read the vertical axis" on top of a chart measuring AI models' release dates and model numbers rather than any real capabilities

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Daniel Elstein @danielelstein.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Influential under their real name, or just under a social media pseudonym?

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Daniel Elstein @danielelstein.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

But I don't think we're talking only about stuff that is poorly made. Something that perfectly conforms to its genre conventions can still be low art, guilty pleasure etc. Think of a very well-made slasher movie.

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Daniel Elstein @danielelstein.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

The real capitalists are the ones who think there should be no private property.

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Daniel Elstein @danielelstein.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

A thousand times this. When I was a student I found unlimited time assessments hugely stressful. I've tried to argue that exams are better for many students, but I think the students who hate exams are louder.

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In Otter News @in-otter-news.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

After a long day at the aquarium, the otters help tidy their toys away. Payment is made promptly and entirely in ice cubes.

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Leeds Thematic Hub for Social Care, Health, Ethics & Philosophy @schepleeds.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

SCHEP is a new thematic hub for Social Care, Health, Ethics & Philosophy at the University of Leeds. Our aim is to foster a collaborative, cross-disciplinary teaching and research culture that builds on our existing strengths. Follow us for updates on events, research, and teaching collaborations!

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Daniel Elstein @danielelstein.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

So I guess we're on to "critical support for Jacob Rees-Mogg" today. Didn't have that one in my calendar.

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