Randomness thread, part two.

[Poopadoop]

Like, imagine saying to someone "I find that word you use to describe your culture to be offensive and you shouldn't use it in my country".

Imagine being that fucking dumb.

It's a tossup between which it's more of: arrogant or dumb, but yes that's pretty dumb.

[MadMojoMonkey]

SMH. Poor thing.
It's pretty rough for her, what with being not an American and all, and now this embarrassing thing about the (altogether wholesome) way she loves herself.
Cancelled.


Seriously, though. Good for her. Keep on rockin' with loving yourself and your culture.

[OngBonga]

It's a tossup between which it's more of: arrogant or dumb, but yes that's pretty dumb.

I had to think about whether it's arrogance or not, I think it is. I mean, generally arrogance is thinking (or knowing) you're better than someone else at something, and behaving in a way such to demean those you view as below you.

But it can also be blindly thinking that your worldview is correct and that everyone else who doesn't share that worldview is wrong, and expecting others to fall into line with your worldview. I'd call that arrogance too.

[OngBonga]

Merry Christmas! Have the only Christmas song I like. The guitar solo is wonderful.

[Poopadoop]

Merry Christmas, mofos! May you find a present you enjoy as much as Chili enjoys this pond.

[OngBonga]

What, you mean awesome for around a minute before getting cold and bored? Just give me an ice cream.

[Poopadoop]

Love you too mate.

[The Bean Counter]

Merry Christmas everybody.

I've been debating the top 5 Christmas movies today. Here are mine in no particular order:

Elf
Muppet Christmas Carol
Home Alone
Die Hard (yeah, I know)
Planes, Trains and Automobiles (technically Thanksgiving)

[OngBonga]

Here's my top 5 Christmas films

1. Superman 2
2. Die Hard
3.
4.
5.

[OngBonga]

And my top 5 Christmas songs

1. Mike Oldfield - In Dulci Jubilo
2. Pretenders - 2000 miles (nearly forgot this existed)
3.
4.
5.

[Poopadoop]

I thought someone had brought up Baldur's Gate 3 here but can't find the post. Have to say I'm quite enjoying the game though, very rich and detailed, and the graphics are amazing.

Even if I accidentally put on some armor that I couldn't use, sold my old armor, and now have to take off the new armor and run around in my undies so I can cast spells again. Oops.

Bonus: I'm well on the road to banging Shadowheart. And I already banged Lae'zel. She tried some "it's time to submit," attitude on me but I wasn't having it. Showed her who's the man.

[MadMojoMonkey]

BG3 is absolutely amazing. I've completed it twice and was halfway through a Dark Urge run when my vacation started.
I'm looking forward to getting back into it.

There's so much that changes between each play through. Sure, the basic story is the same, but what your character can do or what you think to try makes a big difference. Who you save may come back later as a friend, and such.

The armor thing: Gale is a human, so gets to wear more armor than most wizards. It can be confusing when you make a non-human wizard and you're like... but Gale wears it!?!

Also, just go back and buy the armor you sold. All the vendors in Acts 1 and 2 will be there, assuming you didn't let them / make them die.

The only way to increase reputation with vendors (AFAIK) is to give them free stuff. You can pick one with a decent amount of money to pump up and get better prices to buy and sell. Damon is in all 3 acts as long as he doesn't die in Act 2.


There are any% sex speed runs to bang Lae'zel. The times are truly shockingly fast.

Shadowheart is a decent romance. Lae'zel is best long-term, IMO. The way she softens up is the best character arc, I mean.
Astarion doesn't like the goody-two-shoes hero stuff, and he never liked me until the Dark Urge run. I giggled when he called me his "overly stabby friend."

[Poopadoop]

This is actually pretty funny.

[Poopadoop]

^^ For context, if you haven't seen Rick Beato before, the above is a spoof on the below series.

[Poopadoop]

Checkmate, atheists.

[OngBonga]

It's generally better to identify as agnostic rather than atheist when engaging with a theist, because both theism and atheism are acts of faith, while agnosticism is basically like saying "I haven't got a fucking clue, piss off".

[MadMojoMonkey]

Contemporary agnosticism, you mean.

The original meaning of the word was "whether or not there is a God cannot be proven or known."
Just as much an act of faith to assert something cannot be known.


Which I'm not even sure if most people today mean 1 or the other.
To simply say, "IDK," is one thing, but if in your mind, you believe that the person you're speaking to also doesn't know, despite their assertions otherwise... that's a totally different thing that leans toward the older definition.

[CoccoBill]

Haven't we talked about this. Atheism isn't belief in the non-existence, it's lack of belief in the existence.

Theism = belief in the existence of a god or gods
Atheism = lack of the aforementioned
Agnosticism = dunno, both seem equally likely

[CoccoBill]

That video lives up to page 420 standards though.

[Poopadoop]

It's generally better to identify as agnostic rather than atheist when engaging with a theist, because both theism and atheism are acts of faith, while agnosticism is basically like saying "I haven't got a fucking clue, piss off".

Agreed. The reason that arguing with them is pointless is that their beliefs aren't based on anything empirical, but rather they just trust what they've been told. There's no objective evidence for their belief, and in fact enough contradictions within it to make a rational person seriously question it, yet they still believe it. Evidence to them is irrelevant, and so the chain between evidence and belief is unnecessary.

The psychology of this kind of thinking is interesting though. As a child we believe in Santa Claus because our parents say he exists and on xmas morning "he" has left us a present. But once we reach a certain age we realise it's impossible for a mortal man to deliver a billion presents to hundreds of million different homes all in one night, and eat hundreds of millions of milks and cookies, and so the evidence overwhelms our belief, and our belief changes.

With Goddies, the myth is supernatural and so encompassing that it can be used to explain anything (as "God's will" or whatever), and as the mass of their social circle is of a similar mindset (God exists), they maintain that belief despite it being objectively rather unlikely. In fact, because God doesn't have to obey the laws of physics, one could argue that he is responsible for not only all the xmas gifts but everything else that happens. He's just that kick-ass of a character.

[Poopadoop]

Haven't we talked about this. Atheism isn't belief in the non-existence, it's lack of belief in the existence.

Theism = belief in the existence of a god or gods
Atheism = lack of the aforementioned
Agnosticism = dunno, both seem equally likely

Not sure about this. My understanding of the term 'atheism' is that they specifically believe there is not a god or gods. It's not the same as lacking a belief in God, it's believing that there is none. Maybe that's what you meant though and it just went past me.

Surely there's a continuum of agnosticism though. I consider myself agnostic, but I'm closer to 99.9%/0.01% in the belief split that there is no god(s) than that there is. It's not a 50/50 tossup to me, but I just try not to be so arrogant as to think I know the answer for certain.

This is another thing that makes people like Hitchens and Dawkins unpersuasive. They're both so utterly convinced that they're right that the instinctive reaction of the other side is to dig in their heels even harder. Surely they're both intelligent enough to realise this (though intellect and social intelligence aren't necessarily correlated, so there's that...*). But after a while they must realise their approach isn't working, so their goal obviously isn't to change anyone's belief system, but rather to show off how smart they are by being cunts to people who aren't as smart.


* Fun fact, when I was studying at Oxford, a few of us were having a pint with one of the workshop techs who started complaining about how Dawkins kepts asking him to build some impossible kit. He was calling him "dum dum Dawkins." which I thought was pretty funny.

[MadMojoMonkey]

One of my friends in high school was adamant that he was a Christian, even though I never once saw him pick up a Bible. He attended no regular sermons, or even irregular sermons. He was a borderline criminal teen like the rest of us.

And yet, if you brought up anything Jesus related, he would suddenly get all snowflake and butthurt over any implication that his faith wasn't fact.

*shrug*

I don't get the religious thing. If someone feels like believing in religious things helps them have more patience or to otherwise be closer to their best self, then I'm fine with it. Whatever works. I just have no patience for people who use their faith as a justification for bad behavior / dehumanizing others / violence / etc.

Also, I'm like... how many times in your life do you need to have something that was once only understood as religious phenomenon be explained better by scientific means before you start to think... you know... this science thing that I totally use all the time may also apply to things beyond what I normally apply it to.

Faith literally means belief without proof. Which is fine. There's plenty of things I have faith in. But when a better solution comes along, and provides proof... then I don't need to have faith in that thing, anymore.

But it also means that someone who's not interested in proof has a firm crutch to stand on when they decide to ignore proof.
So there's that.

[CoccoBill]

Not sure about this. My understanding of the term 'atheism' is that they specifically believe there is not a god or gods. It's not the same as lacking a belief in God, it's believing that there is none. Maybe that's what you meant though and it just went past me.

Wikipedia to the rescue:
Atheism, in the broadest sense, is an absence of belief in the existence of deities. Less broadly, atheism is a rejection of the belief that any deities exist. In an even narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities. Atheism is contrasted with theism, which in its most general form is the belief that at least one deity exists.

Either of the first 2 work for me. Theists do tend to interpret it only in the latter sense to create a false equivalence.

Surely there's a continuum of agnosticism though. I consider myself agnostic, but I'm closer to 99.9%/0.01% in the belief split that there is no god(s) than that there is. It's not a 50/50 tossup to me, but I just try not to be so arrogant as to think I know the answer for certain.

I believe the standard response to this is that I have roughly identical odds also for Russel's teapot and Pastafarianism. I'd feel silly calling myself an agnostic about them. I think atheism works well here as well, all 3 share about the same level of existing real proof. Should I interpret your 0.01% so that if I list 10000 deities you'll believe in one of them? :P

[OngBonga]

The original meaning of the word was "whether or not there is a God cannot be proven or known."
Just as much an act of faith to assert something cannot be known.

Interesting take on it but not sure it's accurate. Agnosticism is the opinion that the existence of God is either unknown or unknowable. The latter is an act of faith, but the former is a statement of fact.

I interpret the words as such...

theism - the belief in God, which seems uncontroversial.
atheism - the belief that God does not exist, also uncontroversial.
agnosticism - basically, "on the fence", usually rejecting organised religion but open to the idea that there might be more than we understand, possibly what we can ever understand.

The agnostic is the most likely to be swayed by evidence or experience, one way or the other. It's the most scientific position of the three. Science itself is arguably an act of faith, since a "fact" is only what we observe repeatedly. Maybe God is fucking with us. When you use the term "scientific fact" you're assuming that there is no chance that God is fucking with us, hence, an act of faith. So if you're going to argue agnosticism is an act of faith (in all cases) then there are no facts other than our own existence, and even that might not be a physical existence because you cannot prove beyond doubt that we don't exist in a simulation.

The other two positions are generally unmoveable, their beliefs are supported by stubborn faith, and are less likely to be swayed by experience or evidence.

Atheism isn't belief in the non-existence, it's lack of belief in the existence.

You're going to have to explain how these are not the same thing. If I have a lack of belief in the existence of God, then I also have a belief in the non-existence of God. If I'm "on the fence" I'm not an atheist, I'm an agnostic.

[Poopadoop]

Should I interpret your 0.01% so that if I list 10000 deities you'll believe in one of them? :P

Haha. But no, because 1) that's not how probability works (or more accurately, how likelihood works, since probability is always summing to 1, whereas likelihood is relative probabilities); and 2) because no.

If you lined up 10000 deities, I might find some more believable than others, but on average, I'd find each of them extremely unlikely.

For example, I'd be more inclined to believe there's some supernatural being that started the universe and then just sat back and watched and doesn't really give a shit what happens, vs. a God who's both the creator and is omniponent, all-controlling, all-seeing, but lets people suffer. Because the former God just sounds indifferent whereas the latter God sounds like a cunt. But then, I don't have any evidence for either version, so that's just the small part of me talking that is irrational and ignores evidence, so it gets to choose what it wants to believe. Just like it believed some chick liked me in grade 7 when she didn't (ok, it might have happened since then too).

I mean, even rational people believe irrational things. Gambler's fallacy is a perfect example of how common it is. I bet a lot of otherwise intelligent people hold the GF until the day it's explained to them why it's wrong.

[CoccoBill]

You're going to have to explain how these are not the same thing. If I have a lack of belief in the existence of God, then I also have a belief in the non-existence of God. If I'm "on the fence" I'm not an atheist, I'm an agnostic.

Picture a deity in your mind. If I now say I don't hold a belief in my mind that the thing you're picturing exists, we can probably agree on that? What I have is a lack of belief, since I don't even know what you're thinking of. Compare that to me saying that whatever you're thinking of definitely doesn't exist. That's the difference.

[CoccoBill]

Haha. But no, because 1) that's not how probability works (or more accurately, how likelihood works, since probability is always summing to 1, whereas likelihood is relative probabilities)

I know, but it was either that or the fact that your percentages don't add up, and I went with the less nitpicky one.

[OngBonga]

I guess I can see where you're coming from, but it's a very small grey area in an otherwise fairly black and white matter of atheism vs agnosticism.

You have a lack of belief in my position merely because it hasn't been described to you, which is different to not believing something which has been described.

The atheist isn't ignorant or uneducated, he's dismissing what other people believe, with knowledge of what the other person believes.

If you're rejecting a position due to ignorance, while potentially being open to a position that you might become aware of in the future, you're agnostic, because you're accepting God might exist.

It gets a bit messy because we have different cultural interpretations of God, and they are seen as rivalling each other, as different beliefs, especially by theists who belong to an organised religion, while the atheist and the agnostic are both more likely to see them fundamentally as different interpretations of the same belief. So it's easy to get mixed up between atheism and agnosticism when we look at organised religion in the world today, rather than merely the general belief in God or Gods.

[OngBonga]

I guess another way to look at it is thus...

The atheist rejects any and all interpretations of God on the basis that he does not believe in a higher power, a creator. There is no God.

The agnostic rejects organised religion and human interpretations of God while accepting that there might be some kind of higher power or creator, something we could reasonably call God. Or, at least, the belief that such a thing cannot ever be proven one way or the other, and as such does not commit to a position either way.

[CoccoBill]

Didn't mean that the position comes only from ignorance, just used it to try and illustrate the difference. It's all semantics anyway, and if I have to choose between a term that can also be described as "I believe there is no god", and another that can also mean "I kinda believe there is a god but not quite sure", I feel the former is overall more accurate.

[OngBonga]

Yeah fair enough, I'm more inclined to identify as the latter, but even if there exists something that can be called "God", for reasons poop stated, such a God is either nothing more than a creator with no conscious influence on continued existence, or a cunt.

The problem people have is they tend to personify God. It's usually a human, but maybe it's an elephant with eight arms or whatever. It's nearly always a conscious entity that makes decisions, that observes and judges its own creations. And they always judge exclusively humans, you never hear of a God that sends evil dolphins to hell for raping and killing innocent infant dolphins. The cat doesn't go to hell for killing a bird for fun.

Given God is usually identified as an all-powerful ruler of all existence, it's easy to get on board the atheism train. But when you are willing to interpret nature itself as some kind of higher power, you can quite easily slip into agnosticism. I mean, I can at least respect sun worshippers. The sun might not be a conscious all-powerful judge, but it certainly created all life on Earth, and continues to give us life. So while I'm not going to start worshipping the sun, I can at least appreciate it fulfils some definitions of what a God even is.

[MadMojoMonkey]

I'd like to think that if cocco actually lined up 10,000 deities in front of me that I'd believe in all 10,000 deities lined up in front of me.

Also, the number of questions I'd have for cocco would be at least 10,000.

[MadMojoMonkey]

Science itself is arguably an act of faith, since a "fact" is only what we observe repeatedly. Maybe God is fucking with us. When you use the term "scientific fact" you're assuming that there is no chance that God is fucking with us, hence, an act of faith.

Science is an act of faith because believing what has happened is a predictor of what will happen is nonsense.
Believing that the laws of physics are immutable in space and time is an act of faith.
There are countless other acts of faith involving the frequent use of mathematics, a field rigorous enough to prove it is utterly, hopelessly incomplete.

The part about "scientific fact" being somehow immutable is where I take issue with this statement.
The history of science is a story of nerds proving each other wrong. It stands to reason that all we hold as "scientific fact" today will later be shown to be a crude approximation. Then later still, that refinement will also be shown to be a crude approximation.

There's nothing about a scientific fact that is permanent. Quite the opposite.


If you want a permanent fact, say something perfectly subjective about yourself.
"I don't like raw tomatoes."
That's a perfect fact. True as true gets.

People have the weight of value on truthiness all backwards. Perfectly true statements can only be subjective; the best you can do objectively is to state an axiom.

This is true because I can imagine a mathematical structure in which this is true. If you assume this is true, you'll have imagined the same mathematical structure, and we're besties.

[MadMojoMonkey]

The sun might not be a conscious all-powerful judge, but it certainly created all life on Earth, and continues to give us life. So while I'm not going to start worshipping the sun, I can at least appreciate it fulfils some definitions of what a God even is.

Just remember to avert your eyes. The Sun-God takes offense at being directly looked upon.
Except during sunrise and sunset when they put on a good show.

All hail the great source of low-entropy shizwaz!!
Your deliverance of stuff we can increase the entropy of to do "stuff" is totes awesome!
Huzzah!

[MadMojoMonkey]

Agnosticism vs. Athiesm
There's a difference between, "I'm not convinced you're right," and "You're wrong."
A big difference, IMO.

I guess both agnostics and athiests can drift into the latter, though.


I tend to land on the side of
Q) Do you believe in God?
A) The short answer is no, and the long answer is yes.

[OngBonga]

Here's a stone cold fact. This guy is talking out of his arse.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-68085304

An American "scientist" is claiming that to make the perfect cup of tea, you should add salt.

I think he should be fired on the spot. This is worse than a man of science being a flat earther.

[OngBonga]

btw, "I don't like raw tomatoes" isn't necessarily a fact. Have you tried sun dried tomatoes? I don't like raw tomato all that much either, but sun dried can be delicious.

[MadMojoMonkey]

An American "scientist" is claiming that to make the perfect cup of tea, you should add salt.

I think he should be fired on the spot. This is worse than a man of science being a flat earther.

[MadMojoMonkey]

I don't follow football, so I don't know who Taylor Swift is, but he sounds fast.

[Poopadoop]

Game was obviously rigged by the Deep State to embarrass Trump somehow.

[CoccoBill]

https://twitter.com/P_Kallioniemi/st...45157370712386

I knew some stuff about Assange but have missed a lot of this. An interesting figure.

[Poopadoop]

Oskar in a previous life.

[oskar]

https://twitter.com/P_Kallioniemi/st...45157370712386

I knew some stuff about Assange but have missed a lot of this. An interesting figure.

afik, nobody involved in the killing of the civilians and Reuters journalist and the subsequent cover up of the Collateral Murder videos was ever charged, but Julian Assange will likely die in prison for publishing it.

[oskar]

She has dozens of these videos. Absolutely insane YT channel.

[CoccoBill]

afik, nobody involved in the killing of the civilians and Reuters journalist and the subsequent cover up of the Collateral Murder videos was ever charged, but Julian Assange will likely die in prison for publishing it.

Yeah absolutely, says a lot about priorities and motives. From what I've gathered Assange is seemingly a douschebag, likely a Russian asset, but most definitely has done some important whistle-blowing. Would like to see the actual reports being addressed adequately and him getting a fair trial, but can't see either of those ever happening.

[Poopadoop]

Sounds about right.

[MadMojoMonkey]

... but what's his criticism of the other side?

[CoccoBill]

Also, look at the consistent progression:

Claude-1 was hardly better than random. It got 6 answers right, giving it ~64 IQ.
Claude-2 scored 6 additional points per test (worth ~18 IQ points).
Claude-3 scored yet another 6.5 points, worth ~19 more IQ points, bring it up to above the human average.

The symmetric increases make me wonder if Anthropic is releasing versions based on internal benchmarks that happen to closely correlate with this IQ measure.

Let’s now consider the release dates on the versions:

Claude-1 March 2023
Claude-2 July 2023 (4 months production time)
Claude-3 March 2024 (8 months production time)

A very simple extrapolation suggests that we should therefore expect to get Claude-4 in 12 - 16 months, and that it should get about 25 questions right per test, for an IQ score of 120.

After that, in another 16 - 32 months, Claude-5 should get about 31 questions right, for roughly 140 IQ points.

After that, in another 20 - 64 months after that, Claude-6 should get all the questions right, and be smarter than just about everyone. That’s 4 - 10 years out in total, adding up all the time periods.

https://www.maximumtruth.org/p/ais-r...-passes-100-iq

[MadMojoMonkey]

My favorite Al in Al Yankovic


There's a difference between human intelligence and AI, so far. AI tends to homogenize outputs, even when it's teaching inputs are diverse. An example from Sabine Hossenfelder was to feed an AI a bunch of photos of elephants and then ask the AI to produce pictures of elephants. The input images contained a wide variety of poses and backgrounds, but the output images were variations on a single background theme and various grotesque elephant-related things.

The AI's we have don't have the ability, yet, to do what a human would do with that input data.
This is all just a snapshot in time, and not predictive, but it's a common theme with the manner in which AI works now. They pull in loads of data and look for similarities and consistencies, and elevate those traits. The inconsistent stuff is no less "real," but the AI's don't have the ability to deal with that, yet.

[oskar]

I think it's really interesting where the strengths of AI are turning out to be. I don't think anyone would have guessed that the first two professions to get shredded by AI would be stock photographers and programmers. At the same time we're probably decades away from an AI that can run a hot dog stand.

[MadMojoMonkey]

At the same time we're probably decades away from an AI that can run a hot dog stand.

You might want to raise the bar a bit on that one.

[oskar]

You might want to raise the bar a bit on that one.

We're finished.

[oskar]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...-hiding-aliens

If they wanted me to believe that they definitely have alien technology, this is exactly what they would have to release.

[MadMojoMonkey]

Funny how all the aliens stopped visiting once we had satellites and shit that would see them visiting.

innit?

[CoccoBill]

I'm doing the AIGP cert right now, for whatever reason. No mention of Skynet yet, I guess it comes in the later modules.

Also just talked about AI with 2 friends who are coders. Both adamant about how we're nowhere near AI being able to replace programmers, humans are still needed for a long long time and AI will just be used to enhance their productivity. Conservative estimates put the use of generative AI at about a 10% efficiency boost right now, which is expected to rise to 20-30% within a couple years. They didn't seem concerned that there's gonna be demand for 20-30% less programmers in a couple years.

[oskar]

So we basically just learned that we have all our technology from space aliens, and you're like "Why can't the technology that space aliens gave us (fact) not detect the space aliens that are hiding from us?" You're making a fool of yourself!

The way Neil deGrasse Tyson likes to put it: Genetically we are one percent different from chimpanzees, and yet tasks that are trivially easy for a human child like "on your way home from school could you pick up a bag of flour" are impossible for even the smartest chimpanzee out there.

Not only would an alien race visiting us be 100% different from us genetically, we would basically be to them what ants are to us. There's no reason to communicate with an ant colony - what are you going to talk to them about?
But you could give them alien technology and see what happens, because it's hilarious. Have you ever seen a monkey ride a bicycle? Entertainment for days!

[oskar]

I'm doing the AIGP cert right now, for whatever reason. No mention of Skynet yet, I guess it comes in the later modules.

Also just talked about AI with 2 friends who are coders. Both adamant about how we're nowhere near AI being able to replace programmers, humans are still needed for a long long time and AI will just be used to enhance their productivity. Conservative estimates put the use of generative AI at about a 10% efficiency boost right now, which is expected to rise to 20-30% within a couple years. They didn't seem concerned that there's gonna be demand for 20-30% less programmers in a couple years.

My sister says everyone where she works is using ChatGPT to code faster. You still need to know how to code, but she says it's raising efficiency by a lot and you need less programmers for the same task as a result.

Anything that has to do with text and images, AI is really good at, but try to teach an AI how to unclog a toilet, and you have a monumental task ahead of you.

[Poopadoop]

Anything that has to do with text and images, AI is really good at, but try to teach an AI how to unclog a toilet, and you have a monumental task ahead of you.

Cue Mojo to post a picture of an AI plumber.

[oskar]

I will move this goalpost to the ends of the earth.

[Poopadoop]

I will move this goalpost to the ends of the earth.

One of my tutees came to me the other day, worried because a plagiarism detector had given her essay a red flag. I said "how do you think that happened?" and she said she had used ChatGPT to find synonyms for words. And I absolutely believed her too.

So apparently AI plagiarism detectors are so advanced they know the difference between someone using ChatGPT and someone using a thesaurus. Amazing.

[The Bean Counter]

I've been embracing ChatGPT a lot more lately. It worked wonders on making a board report more professional and I also used it to smarten up my job description - I'm now "spearheading" tasks. Tons of time saved and higher quality output.

It's also great for preparing language for constructive criticism. I tried it the other day and typed something like "make this sound nicer: Bean is lazy, ineffective and stupid" and the result was impressive.

I can't remember where the consensus got to with ChatGPT authoring research papers. I know it's listed as the lead author on one or two papers and think it was deemed to be okay as long as it was stated somewhere clearly in the article. I think that makes sense and no doubt helpful for authors where English isn't their first language.

[MadMojoMonkey]

Have you ever seen a monkey ride a bicycle? Entertainment for days!

I feel both attacked and seen at the same time.

[OngBonga]

If we're like ants to aliens, why the hell would they give us their tech? What the fuck is an ant going to do with a smartphone or a drone? What the fuck is a human going to do with a neutrino powered plasma toaster?

[OngBonga]

ChatGPT doesn't know if aliens eat toast.

[Poopadoop]

Headasplode.jpg

[wufwugy]

Popping in to read some old posts I was thinking about.

How yall doing?

[MadMojoMonkey]

Hey, wuf. I was just thinking about you the other day and wondering what you've been up to.

I'm good. Single again. The way she ended it was totally messed up, and I hired a therapist to deal with that. It's been amazing. Best value for money I've ever spent. Dealing with the loss of the relationship didn't really take long. The real work is dealing with all the childhood traumas that preceded it. But it's all good progress. I'm more mentally stable than I've ever been. As difficult as the homework is for therapy, I must confess that it's rewarding and even kinda fun to get through those difficult moments and come out the other side a better man for it.

I know therapy isn't for everyone, and many people have tried it and gotten a bad fit, so I'm not suggesting it's for everyone, but it's been great for me. (Necessary statement because I've found that speaking fondly or highly of therapy tends to elicit a host of negativity directed at me, but not about me, which kinda sucks.)


I still work in physics at the same university. Just had my annual review and my boss said such nice things about me that I kinda teared up a bit. It's great to have that positive feedback and job satisfaction amidst the turmoil of losing such a long-term relationship.

I've had the chance to take some amazing vacations around the world (even took a trip to the UK to see ongie and bean counter last year), but that's kinda on hold now that I'm not splitting any bills or expenses. Living alone after so long is weird. Having so much free time with no one to socialize with is hard to fill. Learning to buy groceries for 1 and cook for 1 has had some funny mistakes. First time I BBQ'd after she left, out of habit I made 2 lb. of burgers and also a pack of hot dogs. Then I was like... WTF?!? That's literally 8 meals I just made and I need to freeze half of it. lol.

It's nice to live in a clean apartment again, though. I just accepted that she would never clean as much as I do, so I can either do all the cleaning and be bitter about it, or just let it slide. I let it slide. Now that it's just me, goddamn. I've spend literally dozens of hours cleaning the house after she left and I'm still not done. It's just something to peck away at a little each day and stop when it gets frustrating or tedious.


Anyway, that's a snapshot of where I'm at today. Give me the same about where you're at?

[wufwugy]

Hey, wuf. I was just thinking about you the other day and wondering what you've been up to.

That's really cool. I've thought about you a lot over the years.

I'm good. Single again. The way she ended it was totally messed up, and I hired a therapist to deal with that. It's been amazing. Best value for money I've ever spent. Dealing with the loss of the relationship didn't really take long. The real work is dealing with all the childhood traumas that preceded it. But it's all good progress. I'm more mentally stable than I've ever been. As difficult as the homework is for therapy, I must confess that it's rewarding and even kinda fun to get through those difficult moments and come out the other side a better man for it.

I know therapy isn't for everyone, and many people have tried it and gotten a bad fit, so I'm not suggesting it's for everyone, but it's been great for me. (Necessary statement because I've found that speaking fondly or highly of therapy tends to elicit a host of negativity directed at me, but not about me, which kinda sucks.)

I've had the chance to take some amazing vacations around the world (even took a trip to the UK to see ongie and bean counter last year), but that's kinda on hold now that I'm not splitting any bills or expenses. Living alone after so long is weird. Having so much free time with no one to socialize with is hard to fill. Learning to buy groceries for 1 and cook for 1 has had some funny mistakes. First time I BBQ'd after she left, out of habit I made 2 lb. of burgers and also a pack of hot dogs. Then I was like... WTF?!? That's literally 8 meals I just made and I need to freeze half of it. lol.

It's nice to live in a clean apartment again, though. I just accepted that she would never clean as much as I do, so I can either do all the cleaning and be bitter about it, or just let it slide. I let it slide. Now that it's just me, goddamn. I've spend literally dozens of hours cleaning the house after she left and I'm still not done. It's just something to peck away at a little each day and stop when it gets frustrating or tedious.

I'm sorry to hear about the breakup, but also I'm happy for you. A breakup can be really hard, but it can also lead to a much brighter life once you get through it.

My best friend got divorced about 2 years ago. His life was going down the drain and then become a total mess after the divorce. I only knew how severe the problems were after the divorce. After that I got him to open up about stuff, and then in the way I tend to do, I hounded him about his life going forward and we've had very deep and meaningful discussions which were sometimes me beating some stuff into his head. Now he's in a much better place and his future is far brighter than it ever was married.

A lot of what you say here is similar to what he experienced, like the strange experience of living for one instead of for two.

It's great that therapy is working for you. Therapy gets a bad rap (understandably) in part because it becomes an excuse generator. But the truth is that you as a man need people you trust and you need to confide your problems in them. If my friend had done that, none of the shit he went through would have happened. It's so hard to do though. It's embarrassing and when you confide in somebody you are covertly promising yourself you now have to do something about it. Most men will just shell up and say nothing, and then suffer the consequences -- which will end up being far worse than they imagine.

But the truth is that if you have people you trust, like elders or a group of male friends, they will be able to see right through the problem that you can't, and their guidance (and pressure) can work wonders.

I still work in physics at the same university. Just had my annual review and my boss said such nice things about me that I kinda teared up a bit. It's great to have that positive feedback and job satisfaction amidst the turmoil of losing such a long-term relationship.

That's great to hear. It can't be understated how important a job and a good boss is.

Anyway, that's a snapshot of where I'm at today. Give me the same about where you're at?

I've wizened greatly in some ways. Like I'm not remotely argumentative like I used to be.

I'll try to run through this in a timeline kind of way:

I have always had deep struggle with my life that ultimately comes from horrible PTSD. The kind of PTSD where I've had mental breakdowns maybe 100 times over the last 20 years, and yet I only discovered last year that it's PTSD. That's how normalized it had been for me.

I'm the personality type (INFJ in the Myers-Briggs framework) that tends towards apathy and feeling unguided in life. Combine this with having chronic pain associated with one of the sources of PTSD, and you get a person who has just struggled so much with life over the years.

I was doing much better around 2019. I'd got back into exercising and had gone from 240 pounds down to 205. On my frame 205 looks really good. I had quit drinking too. Drinking has been what I do to cope with the stuff mentioned above.

Then COVID happened. I'm sure as we all know, COVID kinda changed everything for everybody regardless of what their views were or what they did. Well, for me I got horribly depressed because from the beginning I saw an entire society of people making awful decisions that would result in much suffering down the road. Referncing Myers-Briggs, this is the kind of thing that INFJ really care about.

So I got so depressed and apathetic that i started binge eating and binge drinking so much. Gained up to 280 pounds, and became even more disheartened about the outlook for humanity than I had been before.

I, along with my entire family within a span of about a year, moved across country to live in a region of a state that most shared our views and culture. COVID wasn't the only reason, but it was the trigger for the move.

My boss back in Washington begged me not to move, because I was so good for his company and he thought of me as his best friend. But that was always a dead end career and I knew that the only way I would ever do what was right for me and leave was if it was this way.

Even so I struggled with (highly) functional alcoholism and binge eating. INFJ has self-destructive nature to them, like it's for the purpose of destroying the self. And that's what I have been doing all my life, with ups and downs. I've been really spectacular as a friend to a number of people, but tend towards treating myself very badly.

Things began turning around a year ago, even though the turnaround is very slow. I now have the first career with a positive outlook that I've ever had, working as a dental designer for my brother. Not having a solid career has forever been such a hard part of my life. I'm not the ambitious type, I tend to not know what I want, I tend to overly worry about what others think of me and prioritize their desires over my own. I tend to need to be told what to do with some things and it needs to be by somebody trustworthy because I am a target for dark people even though I see their darkness that they think they are secretly enacting upon me.

I'm drinking significantly less than I used to, and I've been making some headway on curing the chronic pain. The outlook for my life is actually better now than it maybe has ever been, even though I have 25 years of total crap I have to work through.

Through all this, my friendship with my best friend (best besties since childhood) has gotten even stronger. As mentioned above, he went through a divorce recently. Well, the trigger for it was when I moved across country. It was a wake-up call for him that his marriage was destroying his life. After the divorce, he began to open up more with me about his problems, and I took this as "permission" to dig in deep with him on all his shit. And the result has been spectacular.

Perhaps my greatest skill is figuring out other people that I am very close to in ways that they don't understand themselves that well yet are of ultra importance to their well being. So I dug in with him and beat him over the head on some stuff because I could see he was receptive to it and wanting to change. The positive results of this have brought me a tremendous amount of joy.


That's the short of it and my life is (probably) on a good trajectory.


On a side note, I tend to get fascinated by a novel subject then research and contemplate it a ton for a period of time, then usually integrate it into my life or at the least in my mind. Well one of those things the last couple years has been computer hardware, and I've often remembered before that when I would ask you the absolutely most rudimentary questions about GPUs and I still wouldn't understand even the most basic thing about them. I've literalol'd multiple times over the years thinking about this. I want to thank you for putting up with my questions.

[wufwugy]

Also MMM something I wanted to say about girls,

I don't know if this applies to you, but it does actually apply to almost every man to some degree.

Regarding my friend that I earlier mentioned who got divorced: during discussions about his erstwhile marriage, I asked him why with all the problems from the beginning in the relationship did he not breakup with her, and his response was that he just thought that's the way relationships are and that he couldn't do better. My response was I wish I knew that at the time because I could have told him neither of those things are true.

Since his divorce and from learning about relationships and men/women and intersexual dynamics from new dating experience and from discussions with me, he has learned that all the BS that he once thought was normal and all the BS that he once thought about his own value were completely and totally false AND changeable.

If this is a type of thing relevant to you, you can do it too. Any (almost any) man can become courageous, and women crave courageous men.

[MadMojoMonkey]

Wow. Sorry for the long road, but glad to hear you're on a good path, now.

Relationships are weird. I didn't feel weighed down by her at all, quite the opposite. I feel like she gave me the time and stability I needed to actually see my life as redeemable in some sense. I mean... IDK where in the 15 years of being with her my past traumas had the time to heal, but they sure did. It took me a few days after it all happened to realize that I wasn't wracked with a dozen traumas all at once. Dealing with just 1 at a time is EZ game. Ship it. Then it took me more than a month to realize that I never even fell into depression over it. First time for everything. So I got all kinds of love and growth from the relationship. I have my adult legs under me, now.


It was her own path of self-destruction that kept her from being honest with herself about our relationship. She knew every button to push to make me feel loved, and she was good at pushing them. She just for whatever reason chose to do so at the cost of her own self-love.

Or so she said in a fucking letter.

She didn't even have the courage to end it to my face. Just wasn't home 1 night and never came back. Left me a fucking text message after 15 years then ghosted me. Left a letter when she came back a month later to gather the last of her things.

She was good at tricking me into feeling loved, and I was happy with her, but I'll be even happier with someone who's honestly into me and themselves.
All good on that front, brother.

[MadMojoMonkey]

In other traumatic news, my brother died today.
Sudden heart attack. His wife is a nurse and saw it happen. She did everything right to save him, but it wasn't enough.

He and I had fallen out more than a decade ago after he physically attacked me and gave me multiple concussions.

I haven't spoken to him since.

Still hurts the same, though. We grew up together. So many of my traumas were his shared traumas.
Being raised in the house we were in... witnessing our parents divorce firsthand... being raised afterward by a largely absent and abusive man who fell into a decade long depression and was never emotionally available afterward...

I never stopped loving him, even when I couldn't feel safe around him, anymore.
He's my brother.
Fuck.

[MadMojoMonkey]

> The outlook for my life is actually better now than it maybe has ever been, even though I have 25 years of total crap I have to work through.

Same.

It's a hard road, but like I said, it's kinda fun to be like... fuck I have to acknowledge that I'm so good at escapism that I just dissociate from thoughts all the time so I don't have to remember having thought them. Fuck I have to accept that I've literally been thinking of how to stop with my escapism for 2 months and it was winning every fight by making me forget it all.

Then I work on that. Start keeping a journal so my thoughts can't evaporate on me... and just find immediate growth. Immediate progress. Immediate sense of things leading to each other and forming from relevant things. Just like a light bulb gets switched on.

And that's fun. Like... goddamn, I was such a bitch to myself. Not listening at all. I like me, I say good things. I want what's best for me, and I should listen more.
Goofy thoughts like that are fun.


Then my homework is to stop shutting down my "negative emotions" and just feel my feelings. I'm all scared that I'm going to get angry at work or curse out a loved one or something, but you know what happens? I'm a fucking wreck over realizing that I've been doing my best all along. It's not new to be doing my best. When I put up those walls in my mind, that was the best I knew how to do at the time. When I couldn't understand my parent's divorce at age 6 and I made long-term bad decisions for years afterward... that was the best I knew to do at the time, too. I'm not just OK, now... I've always been OK. I forgive my younger selves from their errors. I see they were just dealing with a shitty hand the best they could.

And that happens, and I'm like... THOSE were my negative emotions I wasn't addressing?!?
I wasn't expecting that.


So like, it's hard, but also awesome.

[wufwugy]

Very sorry to hear about your brother. There's something about close family that feels so personal that you love them even if you don't. I'm lucky that I haven't lost any immediate family, but I know I'm gonna feel awful if/when I do.


On the topic of relationships, it's important to remember that red flags never go away. I've been dealing with these both from men and women recently in ways I never thought I would. By "red flags never go away," I mean that when you see a red flag in a person, know that the behavior will come back multiple times down the road, that it will never go away even when it seems it has. I don't know if this applies to your ex-girlfriend, but it probably does even if it was well hidden -- meaning there probably were some signs.

How to deal with red flags? Well you accept the ones that are acceptable, and you move on if there are ones that are not. And as a man, remember that the relationship remaining healthy is mostly about you. Women have a way of becoming unhappy in long term relationships in a way men don't. What keeps that at bay is masculine leadership.


On escapism, I know what you mean. I'm the type who would live inside my head if I could (and often I do).

[MadMojoMonkey]

There were red flags, but seeing them for the magnitude they were was beyond me.
I'm not going to get into the full detail of that, here. Send me a PM if you want the full story.

Also, living near the autism spectrum makes it especially hard for me to read anyone's emotions. About the best I can do is ask them and then trust what they tell me. She knew that and took advantage to lie to me (probably herself to some degree) whenever I'd ask her how we were doing. I told her daily how much she meant to me, and she'd reciprocate. But I was being honest, and she was pretending she felt what she wanted to feel, rather than being honest with both of us about it.

In the end, her living a life false to her truth really fucked her up. That's her issues, not mine.
I have my own issues, I'm not pretending it was all her fault that the relationship ended. It takes 2 to make it work, and barring abuse, it takes 2 to make it break.


As for your thoughts on men's and women's roles in relationships, all I can say is that's a quite limited view of the vast range of men's and women's personalities. Each relationship is its own beast to tame. What each person brings in terms of leadership is relevant. What each person brings in terms of red flags is important. I don't think you can boldly talk about men's and women's roles in relationships without making broad generalities. Those generalities distance the conclusions from any particular couple.

[oskar]

There is nothing to know about women that wasn't already a verse in Ludacris's Area Codes.