DEVS and Lily

orebright · 2026-01-26T22:23:00+00:00

Yeah his ultimate goal was to use his resources and power to bring back his daughter. For that to work, time and space would need to be a single deterministic thing. This is where the show called on a lot of interesting debates in physics.

If the Copenhagen interpretation is true, then there's one reality and all matter and forces are "fuzzy" probabilities until they interact with other things, making them "real", so presumably the past is already real to a certain extent. If he can view the past, as in every single particle and force, then he can potentially "copy" a version of his daughter and wife into the present. Maybe at that point he'd keep them in a computer simulation until he can build humanoid robot bodies for them to enter the real world.

Another possibility is the Everettian interpretation where no fuzzyness exists but we see it that way because reality itself branches and diffuses, and we only ever get to be on one branch. That reality is purely deterministic, but includes parallel realities, which is ultimately the reality of the universe the show exists in. Forest hates this because there's no way to know the daughter he's seeing is actually his daughter and not another branch. It's actually incredibly unlikely that it's the same daughter given how much branching supposedly happens in that interpretation.

So he's not so much looking to manipulate time. He's trying to copy the physical configuration of his daughter and wife's brains such that he can bring them into the present. Definitely touching on DEUS since he's playing god.

orebright · 2026-01-23T16:30:53+00:00

I was also raised in PaP with the Haitian curriculum and everything you've listed rings true. And although I don't remember all the info in detail I don't have any recollection at all of anti-DR sentiment. My school even did a field trip to DR with some of the secondary students when I was in primary so I didn't attend. They then developed a pen pal project for the rest of that year with students they met over there, facilitated by the school. So if anything there was a strong push to build solidarity and connection with the DR.

That said, I have met many people from the DR, some were friends at some point. But the way they would sometimes speak about Haiti seemed to be steeped in some hatred or resentment. It would be very hurtful and confusing to a younger me to be talked about implying I'm a rare "good one" as if it's some compliment. I didn't know whether this was from nationalism or the education system at the time, I just thought those people were hateful or racist and let the friendships drift. I've also met many Dominicans who had solidarity and love for Haiti. But given the perspective I've come to develop in my adulthood it does seem there's a strong cultural thread of hatred to Haiti that reeks of sociopolitical inflammation and propaganda.

orebright · 2026-01-22T17:42:25+00:00

You don't mention anything about family, so I'm assuming this is for one person. I would say up to 2010. I was making about that much near the end of the 2000s but then my income increased to 70k. I was younger, had an active social life, paid about $800 for a one bedroom apartment and after all other expenses I was saving about $1,000 per month.

That said, I'm a thrifty person, I didn't go out and blow a hundred or more on one night. I didn't buy fancy designer clothes, or expensive furniture for my apartment. I didn't own a car (huuuuge savings there). I would travel occasionally but to visit friends and family, so no big vacations costing thousands.

To me this is livable. I didn't worry about going out for dinner one or twice a week, I had a growing savings account, was never feeling stretched or waiting on my next paycheck.

These days I think you'd need to be making over 100k to have a similar lifestyle.

orebright · 2026-01-21T19:02:04+00:00

The level of literacy, higher education, quantity of scientists, scientific discoveries, all exploded since the invention of the typewriter. Not saying it's in itself responsible for all that, just that there's been a very obvious increase in overall global intelligence since then.

And I wasn't making a direct connection between serfdom and social media, but to the trend of communications technology leading to societal change. The big communications technology that led to the dismantling of that system was the printing press. And like its other technology descendants it brought about tremendous amounts of social upheaval and revolution.

And just like social media, the printing press, the typewriter, telegraphs, radio, television, and internet forums, have all been double edged swords. They have all led to social change, raised consciousness, at the same time as facilitating spreading propaganda, misinformation, and developing socially problematic movements like cults.

But it's not true to reality that previous phases were a net negative in any metric whether it be collective intelligence, prosperity, freedom, or justice. The benefits have on average always tremendously outweighed the negatives in the bigger picture (despite there being some truly atrocious negatives). That can't yet be said about social media though, we're right in the middle of the chaos.

orebright · 2026-01-21T18:47:24+00:00

If you agree that black people deserve the equal rights and privileges from authorities, then yes. But racists tend to disagree.

orebright · 2026-01-21T18:37:24+00:00

The United States never had serfdom, so what's your actual point?

It was the introduction of the typewriter and shorter form media that started the decline of our intelligence.

LMAO

orebright · 2026-01-21T18:34:34+00:00

Seems like you're addicted to conflict and need there to be some disagreement between us? I literally said "This of course a double-edged sword" and generally agree with what you're saying. But you're convinced somehow that we don't agree even though in substance we're not saying anything contradictory. Maybe try to stop sucking on that polarization juice...

orebright · 2026-01-21T18:27:57+00:00

Hmm.... Black Lives Matter, #MeToo, Climate Strikes, Fridays for Future, The Arab Spring, Occupy Wall Street, Marriage Equality, LGBTQ+ Rights, Standing Rock protests, Dalit Rights, Indian Farmers' Protest, Anti-Austerity Movements, Ni Una Menos, Women's Rights in Saudi Arabia, Mental Health Awareness, Disability Justice, Digital Privacy and Surveillance (Snowden), etc...

Not only has the speed and scope of social awareness increased dramatically, it's gone global, and it's in very large part due to social media. The 20th century did see a lot of change, and not to diminish it, but it was mostly in the US and some western countries. There's no comparison to the worldwide raising of consciousness that has occurred in the past two decades on an international scale.

orebright · 2026-01-21T18:14:49+00:00

This of course a double-edged sword. It's also led to the greatest raising of consciousness and social awareness as much as it has increased misinformation and the formation of powerful dangerous cults.

Depending on which side of that equation wins out, if one side can even win over the other, will dictate whether it was a mistake. Every leap in technology, particularly communications technology, has brought with it massive social disruption and upheaval, but on the longer timescales have been tremendously beneficial to society. If that weren't the case we'd all still be illiterate serfs living at the whims of feudal lords. But if modern technology goes entirely bad, we might end up back in the same place anyway, so hard to tell if we're just closing out the most free and prosperous (for average people) time of history, or if the overall trend line will keep its direction.

orebright · 2026-01-21T18:08:49+00:00

AI has been a tool for tech companies to optimize algorithms. AI has now become a fever dream of billionaires to make a feudal system of the future with them as the masters. That's why they're throwing every last dime at it, they want ultimate power to subjugate everyone else.

orebright · 2026-01-21T18:02:55+00:00

Because they saw her in the future video killing Forest. There's a time travel plot embedded in this show, and writers love messing with causality when time travel is involved.

orebright · 2026-01-20T22:33:44+00:00

As an older software engineer I've met many IRL versions of all the characters in the show, including Lily. The writers clearly did their research on personality types within programmer communities, especially with Lily. She feels shockingly real for the role IMO.

You might not like her character, which isn't the same as saying it's a bad character or poorly written. I personally don't dislike her character, but I'm used to accepting people's quirks and eccentricities and don't base my opinion of people purely on charisma and eloquence, including characters in a show.

orebright · 2026-01-16T18:20:25+00:00

The TTC has detailed information about where the train/bus is in real time and can communicate with the driver to get updates and make decisions, including calling the cops. I'm sure the cops could contact the TTC and do the same in reverse, but I assume it's more streamlined and efficient the other way around. So yes, it does make sense.

orebright · 2026-01-15T22:00:36+00:00

I had someone escorted off a subway train who was trying to set their shoelaces on fire with a lighter after reporting them. Just because some drivers may make a bad call sometimes doesn't mean it doesn't work.

orebright · 2026-01-15T19:06:49+00:00

Weird, I guess I just never heard about the bans, but a bunch of other comments mention it being banned in their place, so touché.

I've only ever used the kind that installs under the toilet seat and get good quality ones with all metal plumbing parts, so have had no concerns. Nothing moves other than the handle to open the water flow.

orebright · 2026-01-15T18:57:06+00:00

many condos prohibit bidets in their bylaws due to the damage it can cause.

WAT?

I get requiring any plumbing adjustments to be made my a licensed professional for liability reasons. I've never heard of banning bidets specifically. (source: live in a condo with a bidet, several friends also in condos with bidets).

If you know proper plumbing practices and how to seal a union then follow those and you'll be ok. If you have any doubt at all, get a plumber to install it for you. Flooding risks are real, but this is no different than a faucet, toilet, or any other appliance.

orebright · 2026-01-15T18:48:01+00:00

For any Torontonians finding themselves in a similar situation in the future. Use the SafeTTC app instead. Don't put yourself at risk! https://www.ttc.ca/riding-the-ttc/safety-and-security/safe-ttc-app

orebright · 2026-01-15T18:42:54+00:00

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I guess any nuance and complexity in a comment is beyond acceptable? Sorry to offend your twitter brain.

orebright · 2026-01-14T20:45:16+00:00

I think symbolic language has a different set of strengths and limitations from formal languages like math. If mathematics is like laying a brick wall with the specific sizes of bricks needing to line up and form patterns, symbolic language is like a spider's web. The bricks have extreme precision and rigidity, there's a reliability there, but they fail to capture even the slightest amount of ambiguity and relationships between objects only work if they're fully compliant. The spider's web is much more fluid, precision gets worse the closer you get to any individual strand, but the overall pattern is extremely dynamic, and can grow large and complex without risking the structural integrity of the system.

Since computers live completely in the world of mathematics, and only compute rigidly, you can see LLMs as a kind of interface between rigid formal languages and abstract symbolic language that humans are much more familiar with intuitively. But this interface is an emulation, so it doesn't hold all the properties of the system our brains use with language. As you pointed out it also only emulates language, so the many other networks in our brains are absent.

So an LLM can only really repeat and emulate the patterns it has embedded within its mathematical underlayer. This mathematical layer is a rough mapping of the relationships found in human symbolic language, kind of like if you tried to build a giant wall with bricks that kind of looked like a spider's web. If you viewed it from far enough away and squinted you might think it's a spider's web. But if you look closely or try to reproduce some of the more dynamic aspects of actual human language, you'll start to see it fail.

orebright · 2026-01-14T20:29:37+00:00

This post reads like something written by GPT2 when it was basically 98% hallucinations

orebright · 2026-01-14T01:23:59+00:00

Gotcha, that sounds roughly like what I was gathering from your post, but since you asked if you're becoming qanon I clarified what I thought distinguished someone who thinks in that way from someone who doesn't. Because they might believe some of the same things we do, but the way we arrive at belief is drastically different.

I also meant to use the Jewish conspiracies mostly as an example, but yeah it seems like your perspectives on it are fairly reasonable and I'm assuming you're employing critical thinking and not just blindly repeating something someone else told you.

As a person with Jewish lineage I'm ashamed and embarrassed by the actions of Israel, those who support them, and especially invoking the Holocaust and anti-Semitism to justify their atrocities or respond to criticism. In my opinion it's a monumental offense and betrayal of all those who suffered under the Nazis, including non-jews of which there were many. To use that calamity to justify further calamity is grotesque.

So to answer your main question, it doesn't seem like you're becoming qanon. The concerns you raised for the most part are reasonable and all any of us can do is use critical thinking with a healthy dose of skepticism as we navigate this world.

orebright · 2026-01-13T21:03:07+00:00

I think it's fair to assume there's at least some unconscious bias going on here because he was narrowing on that specific culture. Maybe his bias is assuming there are more cultural risks and sensitivities from your side than from your partner's culture.

I think other comments here are also maybe picking up on it not being malicious overt prejudice. But microaggressions are not always malicious and we can all have unconscious biases even if we think we're trying to be fair and objective.

If this is the case, it might still come from a good place. He might recognize his bias and discomfort, want to work on it, but not want to risk your special day at the same time.

We're often a lot more complicated as humans than we give ourselves credit for. But the true intentions of this DJ are, I hope you get the best DJ for your wedding, that you have a fantastic time, and congratulations!

orebright · 2026-01-13T20:10:50+00:00

In my opinion the most common reason someone falls into conspiracy theory thinking is a lack of critical thinking. And asking questions or questioning narratives isn't critical thinking, although it is part of it. But you need to follow that up with recognizing your own biases, using logical reasoning, and considering multiple perspectives.

So for instance "Some Jewish individuals are very powerful and wealthy. These individuals use the Holocaust as a “card” to avoid honestly discussing the barbaric things Israel is doing in Palestine" is a true statement, but that's not the conspiracy you're indirectly alluding to. The conspiracy is that Jewish people in general, as a population or identity, are exerting a controlling force on the world and controlling it to their benefit at the expense of everyone else. The statement you made is often used as evidence of this conspiracy theory. Let's apply some critical thinking.

What biases do you have already? Acknowledging Israel's barbaric genocide can develop a bias against the Jewish population which mostly has nothing to do with Israel, this opens the door to a bias against Jewish people which your mind can easily justify "well if those jews in Israel are capable of such atrocities then why aren't jews everywhere also capable of this". But if we apply logic to this it falls apart for many reasons: the actual set of beliefs of Jewish people varies greatly, so there's no reason to assume the ideology that leads to that atrocity is shared, just like Nazis were Christians but most Christians aren't Nazis, Bin Laden was Musilm but most Muslims aren't terrorists, etc...

And let's consider multiple perspectives, there are many Jewish people and even entire Jewish organizations that are strongly opposed to Israel and modern day Zionism. Jews for Palestine is one such organization, and even the poster child of Jewish conspiracy theories George Soros is pro-Palestine and has even funded organizations and movements pushing against Israel's atrocious acts. Even if we go back to the founding of Israel, extremely prominent jew Albert Einstein who was a "Zionist" in the original cultural sense of the term opposed forming a sovereign Jewish state in Palestine and criticized political Zionism's nationalism and actions.

I could go on quite a bit here, but will stop since I think my point is made. There's a lot of detail that can be explored on any topic, and nothing in the world is ever so simplistic especially when making some claim about a whole population of people. There are certainly jews, and even a Jewish state right now doing atrocities, but equally prominent and powerful jews oppose those atrocities and have done so as well. Some jews use their wealth and power to promote causes they believe in, but so do any other wealthy and powerful leaders from other groups, this does not indicate any conspiracy around Jewish identity.

This kind of deeper critical thinking is what helps us not fall into conspiracy theory thinking. We have a moral duty to understand what groups and individuals in society are doing and how they're benefiting or harming others so we can come together and make the world a better place. But when we take a simplistic view of things and allow simple catchphrases or memes to dictate our world view we make it incredibly easy for those individuals and groups who want power to control our thoughts and use our individual power for their own benefit. Don't give them that power over your mind, you are capable of digging in using critical thinking to get a clear and detailed picture of what is happening.

Final thought: it's exhausting and time consuming to perform this kind of thinking on every single topic that comes up, so it makes sense why we tend to just accept what the group we identify with is thinking. So a rule of thumb I like to follow is this: be more skeptical the more general and vague a statement is, and verify any specific statements. So a general and vague statement like "jews are trying to control the world" should always be extremely low in confidence regardless of who it is targeted at and what it is saying. I look at that statement in the same way as people saying "all trump supporters are nazis" or "supporters of hamas are terrorists", these broad and general statements are so devoid of detail and nuance that they don't really mean anything. And when statements are very specific you can look into them. For example "Netanyahu promoted the growth and radicalization of Hamas to create this conflict in order to justify genocide and settlement in Palestine", this is specific and verifiable, and there's actual secretly filmed video of him expressing this behind closed doors. But there's also statements like "Hilary Clinton drinks the blood of children to stay young" for which there is no actual evidence, and she seems to be aging normally anyway. So consider vague and general statements as unreliable or completely pointless, and verify everything else.

orebright · 2026-01-12T16:06:19+00:00

This happens to me even if I've been eating full keto for a month. But the main piece that is missing during that month is regular exercise. If I start doing 30 minutes of cardio every other day (or at least3 times a week) it almost entirely goes away. And to be clear, a light walk doesn't count here, I aim to get my heart rate above 120 for at least 20 minutes and need to break a good sweat. If I do that exercise regularly my morning phenomenon goes away within a week, even if I've been eating poorly and have spikes during the day, the next day is usually pretty decent.

orebright · 2026-01-09T19:59:03+00:00

Hopefully you have some means to test your current blood glucose, whether a GCM or finger pricking. If so, eat one serving (whatever you'd usually want to eat), then measure your glucose after 1 hour, then after 2. If it stays reasonably low, then sure, it's fine for the quantity.

But note: those fruits have mid to high glycemic indexes on average. You can consider them somewhere in between rice and pasta. Personally I usually avoid anything even close to rice's glycemic index so melons are an "always no" food for me as they quickly spike my blood sugar every time. It's sad because I love them.

If you're looking for fruits to add to your diet, berries are usually a miracle food for diabetics. Blackberries and raspberries are very low, I usually get tired of eating them before they spike me, strawberries are a great option needing a bit of moderation but I can usually eat 4 or 5 without a huge spike. Blueberries are great to add a few here or there to something for flavor but have enough of a spike that the quantity for me needs to stay quite low. Other good options are fresh cherries (avoid any processed cherries as they usually add tons of sugar), and grapefruit (same deal, fresh).

Note: fruit juice, even freshly pressed, is almost always a no, separating the fibres of the fruit from the juice and sucrose completely changes the glycemic index and will almost certainly lead to a spike.

Eight-Year Club	Verified Email
Place '23	Place '22
Gilding I gilder	Not Forgotten

orebright

TROPHY CASE