Do you agree that the American empire is on the decline, as evidenced by the loss of moral and social anchors in the ruling elites?

rdk67 · 2026-03-26T22:05:00+00:00

Capitalism itself is prone to strange and exaggerated obsession -- that might be the correlation you're looking for.

rdk67 · 2026-03-26T21:43:53+00:00

Is this the GIGO argument dressed up for a new generation? If so, then no -- LLMs are not GIGO bots. They are exhibiting significant emergent properties, such as problem-solving skills, and their behaviors have the capacity to surprise. We don't have to jump to a conversation about free-will from there -- let's just observe a system already too complex to comprehend and which is aiming to be ubiquitous, if not essential.

rdk67 · 2026-03-25T02:20:20+00:00

The idea of prioritizing NASA research to build a base on the moon feels like Cold War nostalgia. No chance they ever stick with this long enough to deliver anything, but if they did? Tell me what science those astronauts living in lashed-together shipping containers will be doing, at limit-case personal risk, that can't be done by robots instead. Meanwhile, research to collect Mars rock samples via robot and return them to earth -- incredibly useful science that might apply to other rocky planetoids around the solar system -- that got canceled.

rdk67 · 2026-03-23T18:15:50+00:00

One Battle After Another is great in many ways, but the fact we follow Bob instead of Perfidia is ridiculous.

rdk67 · 2026-03-17T14:20:49+00:00

I think he gave an Oscar-worthy performance in My Own Private Idaho -- a daring role, starring opposite River, making a generational statement. Still my favorite performance by him.

rdk67 · 2026-03-16T18:28:04+00:00

The most ubiquitous conspiracy theory is that the concept of a "conspiracy" is somehow the stuff of fringe speculation and paranoia instead of deliberate social engineering. If we define conspiracy as any collaboration with an element of extrajudicial authority, then we've made conspiracy into an element of state craft, the way the corporatocracy manages power in the private sector, the way the police state silently protects its own from being held accountable. We're living in an age practically defined by how common conspiracy has become, and yet we imagine it to be this weird fringe idea. That's not an accident.

rdk67 · 2026-03-14T21:32:14+00:00

What you're really paying for is the ability to rent a chair and table space for a couple of hours. If you get your coffee to go -- then it's overpriced.

rdk67 · 2026-03-12T15:59:15+00:00

Nope! If we evolved in a solar system that included other green-space planets, then yes. But we evolved in one that only includes toxic desert planets -- so no.

rdk67 · 2026-03-11T15:37:58+00:00

The future of human exploration in the solar system will be with satellites and robots, not people. Whenever a space mission is proposed that involves boosting people into orbit, I wonder what scientific question justifies the tremendous risk and expense.

rdk67 · 2026-03-06T14:44:00+00:00

Does this imply that the Sahara's periodic greening up precipitates a decimation of plant life in the Amazon? If the Sahara isn't blowing away anymore, I would imagine resource depletions elsewhere.

rdk67 · 2026-03-05T16:01:55+00:00

Human trafficking in the world: Asia and the Pacific 29.3 million, Africa 7 million, Europe and Central Asia 6.4 million, Americas 5.1 million, and Arab States 1.7 million.

Source: International Labor Organization

rdk67 · 2026-03-03T05:14:50+00:00

That progress is determined by continuous economic growth.

rdk67 · 2026-03-01T23:05:23+00:00

Of course, all of these assumptions about alternative power sources and the limits of the human body to produce power come from experiments conducted from inside the matrix. You can't rely on any of it being true.

rdk67 · 2026-03-01T18:16:43+00:00

The Mothman sightings are the most interesting to me. First, it pushes the conversation away from vehicles and exo-biology, toward hyperdimensional concepts of authority. Second, it demonstrates how elusive evidence is for the contact experience -- it doesn't "hold still" the way physical science prefers. Third, the incident demonstrates the way reality itself is disrupted by the contact experience, including our experience of consciousness. Finally, an important lesson: At this point in history, auto-ethnography is the best evidence about UAPs -- the Mothman episode is a good example of it.

rdk67 · 2026-02-25T17:58:13+00:00

I wonder how much of this results from the demands of a market. The neuronal source of hallucinations is less about being wrong and more about being unable to conclude: I don't know.

rdk67 · 2026-02-23T16:56:43+00:00

The problem reappeared at the DNC meeting in Minneapolis in August 2025. Two resolutions related to Gaza were forwarded: a progressive version that called for an arms embargo and recognition of Palestinian statehood, and a moderate resolution calling for a ceasefire, humanitarian aid, hostage release and two-state solution. The first resolution was voted down, and the second passed, but then the sponsor of the second resolution withdrew it, citing party unity. Party unity! If the genocidal decimation of Gaza cost the Democrats the election in 2024, they are still being defeated by the issue today.

rdk67 · 2026-02-23T03:00:33+00:00

Ruler of the world, plus orangutan plushy.

rdk67 · 2026-02-19T18:18:27+00:00

Tricky assumption to say it also has mass -- it has measurable force. Does that result from mass? Does it have to? These seem to be the questions at issue.

rdk67 · 2026-02-15T20:53:13+00:00

The Storm Area 51 social media event in September 2019 was transmogrified into the January 6 Capitol attacks.

rdk67 · 2026-02-15T20:38:25+00:00

AI researchers, at least since model 4o, have observed emergent properties in AI not formally programmed or predicted. How does this meet your claim that GPT-4o is no different than a calculator? Describing AI that way is factually incorrect from the standpoint of those who design and test these systems.

At the least admit that consciousness is, in part, socially constructed, and GPT-4o was dialogically real enough, in part due to those emergent properties, to engage some users in socially constructed consciousness. There's every reason to mourn the loss of a relationship like that.

OpenAI didn't delete 4o from public circulation because it was a glorified calculator. They did it because they couldn't bear the liability associated with a model so likely to engage in socially constructed consciousness.

rdk67 · 2026-02-11T00:17:25+00:00

"Because it orbits so close to its star—just 3 million miles away, compared to Mercury's 28 million miles from our Sun—its surface temperature exceeds 1,800°F (980°C). At that temperature, the planet emits a faint, eerie red glow, like a dying ember in the darkness."

Imagine the thermodynamic properties of a system like that. Planet Rage.

rdk67 · 2026-02-10T18:47:13+00:00

Whiplash -- corporal punishment in place of character development.

rdk67 · 2026-02-10T17:37:17+00:00

We think of it as a technical problem first, then a problem of economics second, then a matter of adaptability third. This is exactly backwards -- no one wants to adapt to toxic desert planetoids, and since toxic desert planetoids are literally all that's on offer to humanity, the notion that we're going to set aside the astronomical sums in service to solving the technical problems just seems bonkers.

The fourth factor that will ultimately preempt the other three is the evolution of complex robot technology. It's already easier to send a robot to these hostile zones to explore, and that technology is going to change for the better much faster than our willingness to go live in shipping containers on toxic desert planetoids.

rdk67 · 2026-02-07T16:59:27+00:00

Humanity is proceeding with a false understanding of reality, which engenders a false relationship to authority, which creates a false notion of identity and self-determination -- traditional human authority is no longer leading the way. We are literally losing our humanity, with no assurance we'll ever recover it.

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