> In 2012, on the 35th anniversary of the Wow! signal, the Arecibo Observatory was said to have beamed a digital stream towards Hipparcos 34511, 33277, and 43587.[45] The transmission consisted of approximately 10,000 Twitter messages solicited for the purpose by the National Geographic Channel, bearing the hashtag "#ChasingUFOs" (a promotion for one of the channel's TV series).[46] The sponsor also included a series of video vignettes featuring verbal messages from various celebrities.
What an inane, embarrassing "response", if the original was any attempt to communicate. (Sounds like it probably was not, but still...)
For context (since this reply seems to be getting downvoted into faded-text status at the time I am seeing it, perhaps in part because these days people might be seeing this as a political viewpoint for...reasons):
In Carl Sagan's "Contact" the first message we get from another civilization is a rebroadcast of a Hitler rally in the run-up to the 1936 Olympic games.
In the story, as one of the early examples of broadcasted television this rally happened to be the first broadcast from us that was detected by the civilization at Vega, and they rebroadcast it back to us as part of their larger signal inviting us to come say hi.
Effectively a coincidence that it happened to be fascist in nature, but causing some amount of panic in the story from people who read into this as the aliens being pro-fascist.
I'm hoping that any aliens that may or may not exist respect my contextual integrity and don't dox my Twitter.
But to be more serious: it is absolutely embarrassing we've gone from a world where a Russian and an American sit down at the science center to talk about their work and take questions to... this.
Keep in mind WHY collaborating on space was so big -- because the same technology that can put a man on the moon can put a missile anywhere on earth.
The phrase "exception that proves the rule" refers to an apparent exception to the rule's outputs actually being explained by it having divergent inputs, i.e. if you claim P=>Q, then the exception that proves the rule would be an instance of ~Q=>~P.
What's different about computers that makes this applicable here?
Both usages are common, and Wikipedia references both of them. But in the sense that it was being used, "rules can have exceptions, therefore this exception 'proves' the rule rather than falsifying it" is not valid, and is not consistent with either usage.
The term is often also used simply as claiming the existence of a rule by claiming the exception.
It's one of those terms where I am pretty confident that I see the original use more rarely than the technically incorrect variations to the point I'd hesitate to call them incorrect any more.
> This meaning of the phrase, which for Fowler is the original and clearest meaning ... This argument states if an exception exists or has to be stated, then this exception proves that there must be some rule to which the case is an exception
So no, OP used the correct definition and no wide spread usage uses ~Q=>~P. That's a weird logical formulation that was randomly concocted.
> So no, OP used the correct definition and no wide spread usage uses ~Q=>~P. That's a weird logical formulation that was randomly concocted.
No, most logically coherent usage of that phrase absolutely does reflect ~Q=>~P, which was not "randomly concocted", but was rather was determined via logical reasoning.
> Rule: It's hard to find a product that hasn't gotten worse or more expensive, even adjusted for inflation.
> Exception: computers i think are more affordable now than even 20 years ago, in bang for buck
> This proves the rule because if it's an exception to the rule, therefore the rule must exist in the first place.
No, a standalone claim that contradicts the premise of a previously claimed general rule does not "prove" that original claim.
If I say "it hasn't rained all week" and you respond with "but it did rain on Tuesday", you're pointing out evidence that falsifies the general claim about it not raining, not demonstrating an exception that strengthens its validity otherwise.
This usage only makes sense if the "exceptional" claim is formulated as an exception to some unstated assumption, but even there, does not actually substantiate the validity of that assumption, but rather just reveals that the assumption is being made.
Another commenter offered a good example of this: "no parking on Saturdays" carries the implied premise that parking is permitted on other days of the week: it's nature as an imperative statement that applies special treatment to a particular case implies that the general case is something else.
But "computers have become cheaper over the past 20 years" does not in itself imply any assumptions about general economic trends or other categories of goods, and certainly doesn't prove the validity any assumptions about either.
No I am not. What you're demonstrating is exactly the basis for why the new usage is spreading.
Poster 2 has raised a disagreement with the original claim. There was no implied rule. Poster 3 used the claim of it being an exception to imply a third rule that neither of the first two posters had claimed, as opposed to making a statement where the exception demonstrated the existence of a rule in the first place.
If you're going to make false claims and lie about my intent, then at least don't be entirely wrong while doing it.
If you're going to continue this thread you can talk to yourself - I have no interest in continuing a discussion when you start lying about my intent.
I'm a big fan of Scott's, but I haven't been happy to see how this story's failure to say what it means has in some ways only made it less relevant over the years as we've come closer to building something like the item that, on the surface, it talks about.
Not to say I think it's a bad thing at all that people have a name for this concern for giving up agency to an external system, even when that system really has your best intent in mind. You can call Claude a whispering earring and people will understand what you mean pretty well. The actual consequences you're looking out for are maybe a bit subtler than your brain atrophying, I really really never liked that detail in the story, but that's fine, people will get it. By the Death of the Author, the story's a great contribution as it is.
But it just feels like a loss that there really was a different thing that the author meant, and it got lost in translation. http://web.archive.org/web/20121007235422/http://squid314.li... clarifies it. It's quite similar to a Yudkowskyan fun theory concern (and IMO really not surprising that the story was released a couple of years after the fun theory sequence): If making the right choices and doing the right thing eventually comes down to a mechanical computation, and you've got all of your resource limitations and psychological hang-ups and such things out of the way, then there's no room left to do the right thing, and you've turned yourself into a mechanism.
I don't think that's really a possible state that any system with any trace of humanity left in it will ever enter, there's too many too large search processes in the way to fit in a finite universe. So it's a pretty abstract concern even among its peers. But it's one that's fun to talk about sometimes, and one lesson we've learned from the response to this story is that mysterious, easily misinterpreted parallels in fact do not point people in the right direction to see it.
It's not subtle, it's clearly saying "if you outsource your thinking to something else, your mind will wither".
People complaining about this have a long and storied history, this is the same as Plato complaining philosophers were ruining their minds by writing things down to remember them.
This is not what Plato thought, this is not even what Plato wrote that Socrates thought. You are referring to the Phaedrus. You should read it! Its much better than this story, trust me.
But either way, people's minds do not wither in this story, it explicitly works out fine for them?
> But either way, people's minds do not wither in this story, it explicitly works out fine for them?
Huh?
"when the corpses of the wearers were being prepared for burial, it was noted that their brains were curiously deformed: the neocortexes had wasted away, and the bulk of their mass was an abnormally hypertrophied mid- and lower-brain, especially the parts associated with reflexive action"
You could infer their minds fading away even without that paragraph, but it's very explicit.
Also you have another comment where you insist nobody has explained what the story is arguing when multiple people told you what the story is arguing, what the heck.
OK, so there is a magical device that provides you with deep contentment no matter what. But then, when you die and they cut your head open, the physical, biological brain has shrunk. And that's bad. Is that right? Is this what it's about?
Is the story actually arguing something? I have just been literally asking what it even presumes itself to be about. Is it the gloss above?
If it's about agency, I don't get it. It seems silly/facile to assert the "right" decision is the thing that matters without making the thing so magic it doesn't even make sense. Does agency stop you from getting hit by a runaway bus? Help you from being persecuted for arbitrary reasons? The story tells us they all, unfailingly, live "abnormally successful" lives. That's all supposed to be because of their (non) agency because of the earring device?
Is it actually contentment or are you fading away so much you cease to exist?
The story is not about physical brain changes, no. It's about losing yourself. It's arguing that to exist is to make decisions. Following the device too much leads to a life that looks successful from the outside but inside no longer has a person enjoying the success, just a puppet.
But it explicitly says it provides the wearer with happiness, it is "supernaturally effective" at it. Where as a reader are we supposed to gather this is not an internal happiness?
Come to think of it, its not even clear there is a question of agency or like some inverted solipsism as you suggest. Wouldn't the wearer need to be compelled for that to be at stake? Kadmi-nomai can wear it and take it off, right?
Aren't they, from the inside and outside, just listening to magically good advice and getting along great because of it?
> But it explicitly says it provides the wearer with happiness
It gives you one of the best options for happiness for any decision you face, which is not quite the same. And don't forget it tells you to take it off very first thing.
> Where as a reader are we supposed to gather this is not an internal happiness?
The rest of the story.
> Come to think of it, its not even clear there is a question of agency or like some inverted solipsism as you suggest. Wouldn't the wearer need to be compelled for that to be at stake? Kadmi-nomai can wear it and take it off, right?
It's a problem if you wear and follow it for a very long time. He talked to it for a couple hours.
> Aren't they, from the inside and outside, just listening to magically good advice and getting along great because of it?
Your neocortex is pretty important. You can argue that you think loss of self is unrealistic, but the story is very clear in its judgement. Don't turn a disagreement with the story into "not understanding" the story.
Well my reply elsewhere in this vein seems to have been flagged to death or something, but.. OK. If its really just that, then yeah I am guilty of expecting maybe a little more intellectually here then is apparently warranted. Thanks for the help there.
Very modest opinion from a, as you can see, pretty dumb guy: the reason the Ring of Gyges is a "good" parable (or insert similar here) isn't because it somehow contains everything we want to be "argued" against, e.g., Thrasymachus. Rather, it's because it creates a unique ethical dimension to be interrogated and possibly overcome. It creates a true dilemma and a kind of need for ethics. OP's little story here just feels like Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius dressing on top of some commitments we are already supposed to be in on. It does not really inspire one to dig deeper, or to even really think (which kinda has a fun irony to it relative to the story).
Eh I think the writer should visit poor countries and live among locals. Mistakes and poor judgements compound, and it leads to horrific living conditions (malnutrition, nonexistent hygiene, quack medicines, short-sighted violence, etc)
In fact developed countries are built on top of these "earrings": it's called math (and by extension science in general). If the math is right, it's always right, and it has spared their lucky citizens a LOT of needless misery and wheel-reinvention.
"Thinking for yourself" is overrated if you don't have good framework. See antivaxxers and their "research"
No, this story takes it to the extreme, that you end up basically having no brain.
Take it this way. People seem to judge that LLMs are not conscious and thus have no real inner experience. And that humans do. So if you replaced a human brain with a very powerful LLM (with some simply residual neural matter), you've basically killed the human. He isn't feeling anything at all anymore, he's just an automaton, basically a flesh robot.
I think this story is a weirdly good discussion point because many people still don't seem to "get it" that success is completely fundamentally irrelevant, and what matters is having a good inner life. You are what happens in your mind -- overall good thoughts and inner life = good life; bad thoughts and inner life = bad life. You can theoretically be the richest man in the world and about the most miserable, and very poor and living the best life.
If we don't kill our definition of good life and success (i.e. reaffirming value as pertaining exclusively to the mind), it will sooner or later kill us, or kill what's good in us. The more we can orient our entire society toward good inner lives and not anything else, the better our lives will be.
Then went back to a society safeguarded by the "earrings" (OSHA, FDA, CDC, etc). Poor countries usually don't have the resources and enough HDI to enforce public safety.
Not saying his experience doesnt count, but 1 week is not enough to experience that crushing learned helplessness when everyone around you keep doing stupid sh*t and sabotaging themselves and others near them.
Which is why Trump defunding public safety agencies is baffling to me, a person from a poor country. Such a decadent behavior.
Might help interpretation to say on the front page that it's a five point scale with 0 (or 1?) being the safest score. This can be picked up from colors and the bars in the individual reports, but it takes a minute to figure it out.
This is capitalism working as intended. Only the best run airlines can survive, and investors are collectively subsidizing air travel for non-investors.
Nothing in the article (or in the real world) even remotely suggests that "the best" airlines survive. Simply, the airlines that survive are the ones that survive.
> In 2012, on the 35th anniversary of the Wow! signal, the Arecibo Observatory was said to have beamed a digital stream towards Hipparcos 34511, 33277, and 43587.[45] The transmission consisted of approximately 10,000 Twitter messages solicited for the purpose by the National Geographic Channel, bearing the hashtag "#ChasingUFOs" (a promotion for one of the channel's TV series).[46] The sponsor also included a series of video vignettes featuring verbal messages from various celebrities.
What an inane, embarrassing "response", if the original was any attempt to communicate. (Sounds like it probably was not, but still...)