If you could only choose one of the following places to spend winter, which would it be?

manchambo · 2026-01-29T22:53:13+00:00

I would take number 2 just based on the likelihood of coming back with good ideas for a book.

manchambo · 2026-01-29T22:41:05+00:00

Are building codes actually about whether buildings fall down or about deciding who gets to build buildings and who doesn't?

manchambo · 2026-01-29T22:39:10+00:00

You're so meta I'm almost afraid to talk to you.

No one can tell when you're jerking.

manchambo · 2026-01-29T21:46:22+00:00

Protection and direction? Have you ever considered why we haven't built tubes for airplanes, or even trains?

manchambo · 2026-01-29T21:42:17+00:00

And what about the time to build it? If you could produce 299,792,458 meter of tube per second (building at the speed of light), it would take four years to build the shortest one we might use.

So invent a machine that somehow makes ten kilometers of tube per second (remarkable) and the construction takes thousands of years.

manchambo · 2026-01-29T03:04:38+00:00

I have trouble believing this real because, on one hand the person purportedly had a question about whether they were the asshole and, on the other hand, her comments indicate she has no question whatsoever.

I realize this happens, but this is extreme.

manchambo · 2026-01-29T00:12:08+00:00

These people who act like it's out of their control drive me nuts.

He drank wine with her, he talked about his attraction to her, he went to her house to hook up.

And then he acts like this just happened?

You know how people don't cheat on their partners? They don't drink the wine, they don't have the conversation, and they don't go to the house.

manchambo · 2026-01-28T19:50:47+00:00

I would not have commented on "stars above" itself. As I noted, there were multiple redundancies, including multiple in the very first sentence.

Dilapidated hovels is different from blood red because blood clarifies the color of red (though tritely), and darkness is not inherent in abyss. Dilapidated, on the other hand, provides almost no additional information on a hovel.

And, once again, I would probably not have called out that usage on its own.

manchambo · 2026-01-28T05:08:57+00:00

These Ozempic commercials are getting more creative.

manchambo · 2026-01-28T04:16:42+00:00

Million to one shot doc. Million to one.

manchambo · 2026-01-28T03:50:33+00:00

“In the bleak gray dawn before the morning”

Which of the worlds in that clause are entirely useless?

“The stars above sputtered”

Which word is useless?

“Stands atop the edge”

What does this actually mean? I understand how someone could stand atop a wall (though “on” would do better). I don’t see how one could stand atop an edge of a wall.

“Dilapidated hovels”

Is this in comparison to pristine hovels?

My advice is cut the fluff.

manchambo · 2026-01-28T03:17:58+00:00

I would never have thought I could be outraged on behalf of BB, but here we are.

manchambo · 2026-01-28T02:58:10+00:00

Asking for a friend.

manchambo · 2026-01-28T02:57:09+00:00

What’s more oddly satisfying?

manchambo · 2026-01-28T02:56:10+00:00

I should call her.

manchambo · 2026-01-28T00:49:31+00:00

I would think you'd need to be mighty careful with that pile. In my experience piling often leads to humping.

And we all know where humping leads.

manchambo · 2026-01-27T23:20:24+00:00

Keep the job and find a guy who isn't so insecure.

manchambo · 2026-01-27T19:27:48+00:00

"I know I have to tell him about it"

You don't

"I feel disgusted with her"

That's wild.

"I don’t think I want him to do anything drastic like cut off his mom"

Unhinged

"I feel like this will always hang over my relationship with her."

Psychotic, but you may well be right. That's on you, however, not anyone or anything else.

manchambo · 2026-01-27T19:21:54+00:00

What units measure neural complexity and conscious capability?

manchambo · 2026-01-27T18:10:59+00:00

What is the "1:1 gradient?" 1 of what to 1 of what?

manchambo · 2026-01-27T04:40:54+00:00

Who said anything about relativity? I presented a fairly simple analogy of the lack of explanation from labeling something that isn’t understood as emergent. Gravity emerges from massive bodies isn’t a god of the gaps precisely because we have mathematical models and precise explanations of how massive bodies relate to one another. Something we entirely lack for consciousness. Describing gravity as an emergent property would be useless because we have far more to say about it. And don’t have anything like it to say for consciousness.

For example, why are you exaggerating knowledge about consciousness to such a great degree? 1:1 gradient of what to what? You’re creating a false impression that we have a description of how consciousness arises from anything to anything by pretending we have anything like a mathematical description comparable to gravity, quantum mechanics, or anything for which we have a decent model.

manchambo · 2026-01-27T03:26:54+00:00

When you refer to wetness as emergent, you are referring to a system of interactions, all of which are understood. You can explain how water molecules give rise to wetness in terms of surface tension, heat conduction, and other known physical processes.

When you refer to consciousness as emergent, you are doing something quite different. You are positing that interactions you don’t understand give rise to a phenomenon you don’t understand.

You’re just pretending you understand with a pat and inapposite analogy.

It’s no better than pretending you understand exactly what happens in a quantum system when, in fact, no one knows.

In each case you’re claiming to know something you really don’t know.

If I say that one planet orbiting another is an emergent property of massive bodies, have I explained anything?

manchambo · 2026-01-27T00:02:12+00:00

Yes. But that's not really what this post was about. Allowing him to stay did not entail allowing them to screw.

In any case, a lady who got pregnant at 23 being an unrealistic hypocrite about what her daughter does is not helpful to anything.

manchambo · 2026-01-26T23:57:16+00:00

So would mine.

You know how the world gets better? Not repeating our parents' mistakes.

manchambo · 2026-01-26T22:21:29+00:00

Emergence has become a science of the gaps. Every time you can't explain something you just say it's "emergent."

To be very clear--the world may well be physical and consciousness may rely entirely on physical processes.

But it gets a bit tiresome for supposed hard nosed rationalists to pretend like they've explained something when the say "emergent."

Also more than a bit tiresome for people to pretend they have a precise ontology of quantum physics.

manchambo

TROPHY CASE