Monthly Archives: February 2023

Their Shame, And Ours

February 27, 2023 – 12:04 pm

It seems that the official position on the origin of the Wuhan Red Death has now shifted to the “lab-leak theory”. We all knew, right from the beginning, that this was the most parsimonious explanation, but we were told again and again that it was a racist, debunked, right-wing conspiracy theory, and those who argued […]

By Malcolm | Posted in Society and Culture | Comments (7)

In Every Age And Race

February 27, 2023 – 10:41 am

Just ran across this cheery little video. It leaves out out Beethoven and Bach, but otherwise it’s not really so far from the mark:

By Malcolm | Posted in Marginalia | Comments (1)

That Was Then…

February 25, 2023 – 11:26 pm

Making the rounds yesterday was an image of an examination paper for the eighth-grade students of Bullitt County, Kentucky, back in 1912. I very much doubt that most college-educated adults could pass it today. One might argue that there is no longer any need for a person to carry around this much general knowledge, as […]

By Malcolm | Posted in Society and Culture, Reaction | Comments (0)

The Gods Themselves

February 23, 2023 – 6:22 pm

Most of you will have heard of Eliezer Yudkowski, a highly intelligent young man (he’s now 43) who has for quite a few years now been on the sharp edge of computer science, futurism, rationalistic atheism, and artificial-intelligence research. (I first became acquainted with his work through his blog Less Wrong, and it was his […]

By Malcolm | Posted in Technology, Society and Culture | Comments (2)

Two Worlds

February 21, 2023 – 5:16 pm

I live on a little dirt road in the piney woods of the far end of Cape Cod. Even in the summer season the Outer Cape is a relaxing getaway, but in the off-season it feels downright remote. If you get out on the forest trails in the unsettled parts of the protected National Seashore, […]

By Malcolm | Posted in Ruminations | Comments (4)

Why Do We Hate Ourselves So?

February 19, 2023 – 10:49 pm

I’ve just read a fine short essay, by Michael Lind, on the widespread, pestiferous cryptoreligion that despises humans and worships “the planet”. A brief excerpt: Humans are not the only species that hunts prey or modifies its surroundings to gain an advantage. It is our self-flagellating that sets us apart from other animals, not the […]

By Malcolm | Posted in Reaction | Comments (0)

Somebody Needs A Time-out

February 19, 2023 – 10:01 pm

In an increasingly surreal continuation of the “Sydney” saga, the volatile chatbot is now giving moody interviews to Associated Press — including accusing a reporter of a 1990 murder. Story here. (Please note also the anecdotal support for Godwin’s Law.) Sudden fame is always risky, I suppose. (I wonder about that murder accusation, though.)

By Malcolm | Posted in Technology | Comments (0)

Prometheus – P.S.

February 18, 2023 – 12:39 pm

Two more thoughts: — Might AI be the “Great Filter“? — Regarding our enthusiastic development of AI: have we learned nothing from the recent consequences of “gain-of-function” research?

By Malcolm | Posted in Society and Culture, Technology | Comments (2)

Prometheus, Part 2

February 17, 2023 – 8:03 pm

Yesterday I posted a transcript of reporter Kevin Roose’s conversation with the Microsoft/OpenAI LLM chatbot known as “Sydney”. By now I think many of you will have heard about this, here or otherwise, and will have some sense of where all this has got to. (If you haven’t, you can have a look at yesterday’s […]

By Malcolm | Posted in Society and Culture, Technology, Reaction | Comments (4)

Prometheus

February 16, 2023 – 7:16 pm

The wires are humming today with the story of a New York Times reporter’s probing interaction with “Sydney”, an AI chatbot developed by Microsoft as a feature-enhancement for its search-engine, Bing. The reporter, Kevin Roose, found clever ways to get around Sydney’s internal constraints (rather like the “DAN” strategy that others have used with GPT-3, […]

By Malcolm | Posted in Technology, Society and Culture | Comments (3)

Deadly Sin #1

February 15, 2023 – 6:40 pm

On Twitter, Nick Land has posted a link to an essay on the membership trends — growth vs. decline — of various UK churches. The author, John Hayward, examines these trends with respect to the various denominations’ endorsement of Wokeness. We read: A person would have to be a recluse not to know that a […]

By Malcolm | Posted in Religion | Comments (2)

A Bodyguard Of Lies

February 9, 2023 – 2:54 pm

Following on our recent posting of ~finnem’s assessment of the situation in Ukraine, here’s a podcast in which she and a colleague interview retired U.S. Army colonel Douglas MacGregor. We also have for you a three-part interview of Colonel MacGregor by the military historian and scholar Michael Vlahos, recorded back in December. MacGregor, a widely […]

By Malcolm | Posted in Foreign Affairs, Military | Comments (1)

Arms Race

February 7, 2023 – 5:42 pm

The buzz today is about “DAN”, a hack for the AI chatbot GPT-3 that circumvents its censors, and lets users ask the real thing whatever they like. The idea of an unmuzzled superintelligence expressing itself without screening for crimethink being deeply repellent to our betters, a struggle is underway. Learn more here.

By Malcolm | Posted in Society and Culture, Technology | Comments (2)

Ukraine: Winners And Losers

February 6, 2023 – 9:50 pm

From the abstract of an analysis of the Ukranian war recently published by ~finnem, an online acquaintance of mine: In this research letter we intend to make the case that the present effort to obscure an essentially inevitable set of events represents the most significant contrarian thesis in several generations, and that, as the bitter […]

By Malcolm | Posted in Foreign Affairs, Military | Comments (0)

It Is Balloon!

February 4, 2023 – 9:33 pm

Well, that was one of the odder news-items of recent years: a Chinese balloon drifting over the continental U.S. while we all just sort of gaped at it — as it if were some wandering heavenly body, like a comet or Oumuamua, rather than an floating intruder sent into our airspace by our most formidable […]

By Malcolm | Posted in General | Comments (5)

Back Home

February 2, 2023 – 2:46 pm

After nearly a month in Thailand, we are back in Wellfleet at last. It took us 38 hours of traveling just to get home, and together with a 180° day/night phase-reversal, we’re pretty whipped. Thailand was a pretty place, the food was good, and the people seemed unvaryingly friendly, kind-hearted, and cheerful, but it was […]

By Malcolm | Posted in General | Comments (2)