> Sources familiar with the matter told Bloomberg that while the Optimus prototypes were able to walk without external control using AI, employees stationed remotely oversaw many of the interactions between the bots and attendees during the “We, Robot” event.
> At least one video from the event displayed an Optimus bartender acknowledging that it was being “assisted by a human.”
In what sense is your mind free in a world where psyotropics are prohibited? LSD and psilocybin aren't addictive or habbit-building, think about that. Don't knock it 'till you try it.
That Salvia divinorum is somehow legal (varies by jurisdiction) always blows my mind...
My personal opinion is that most people won't be able to regulate any large caches of the above-commented drugs... but after one or two rides on Salvia most'll keep a wide birth [which I recommend as "the worst experience possible; if somebody suggests you try Salvia they're bullying you; try something else"].
DMT is a drug I’d highly recommend everyone take once but only once.
The experience of existing for a short time without the concept of self, experiencing zero sensory filters, and finally having your brain rebooted as it has a kernel panic (and going through the brain kernel load process as it does so) is mind blowing.
It’s enough to convince you that we live in a highly advanced simulation. Or one could just be high af.
Also I’m pretty sure it was based on an old version of Linux because I’m convinced I saw the kernel message “Based upon Swansea University Computer Society NET3.039“.
Do all of them. To me, government exists to mediate interactions between parties. Not to get involved in personal choices. If someone wants to rip fat lines of coke, good for them. Not my business.
Do you think people who rip fat lines of coke will never interact with society in any way that affects you?
Of course government gets involved in personal choices. Every crime committed by a person is a personal choice. Interactions between parties are interactions between people. The distinction you're trying to draw here doesn't exist.
Legitimate crimes have a perpetrator and a victim. That's two parties in conflict. Drug possession only has 1 party, the person possessing or doing the drugs, and drug sales have two parties who aren't in conflict.
We don't live in libertarian utopia, let's first focus on substances that are *obviously* misclassified, the ones cited before have actual benefits, the most obvious one being psilocybin.
This technology, like all technology, increases humanity's collective capacity to create solutions to problems and implement them. Faster travel means more time to solve problems. LESS planes and LESS speed make the world a worse place.
Sure, new technology does create new issues, and can make others worse, that doesn't mean, however, that technology doesn't also increase our ability to continue improving and doesn't make the world a better place.
I have a 3 year old pug. He'll run through the house searching for the right family member if you count down from 10 and say "Go find X! Where is he?!"
That's too cute! I like to imagine that you have hardwood floors in this house, and he skitters around in a frantic panic Tokyo-drifting his way to that family member
The depth of a book is vastly different than the 10min youtube video summarizing said book. I’ve tried both modern and legacy form factors and honestly I’m on camp book more and more as the years go on.
The modern stuff feels like total fluff compared to a book, which in turn feel like total fluff compared to the academic papers it is based on. These days I would rather spend 2 hours reading a good book or paper than 10 minutes watching an engagement-optimized edutainment video.
And for the really good stuff you have to go even more legacy – conversation with an expert. A medium older even than books. That’s where you get the stuff that hasn’t made it into papers yet, let alone the downstream half-digested edutainment stuff.
I got back into reading books after a long hiatus and was pleasantly surprised by how much I missed them. The depth of thought and nuance is just totally different than an article or youtube video. I still consume plenty of modern media but feel like I get more out of books on average.
For anyone who wants to get back into reading books my advice is to start with whatever sounds fun. A lot of people fall into a trap of feeling like they need to read something useful or serious and just get turned off to the idea. But reading lighter books are still great and provide a lot that you won't get from tv and similar mediums. Over time your interests will evolve naturally into new areas.
Hey if you’re getting the depth of a book, it’s a book no matter the format. My objection is to surface level edutainment formats that feed your brain chicken nuggets but trick you into thinking it was steak.
Lots of surface level books that are the length of a book and the value of a 5min tiktok too.
Yes. Same thing applies: the book is deeper and more nuanced than the movie. There’s just more room.
Modern 8 to 10 episode series can get close to being as nuanced as a good book. You simply need space to go deep, no amount of cleverness will help you do that in a short format.
Well, can you name a computer game that is a great artistic work? There are many that are good, but I can't say there are any that are on a par with, say, "The Lord of the Rings" or "War and Peace" or "1984".
There are many innovative and critically acclaimed titles in the independent game scene, though they are obviously judged on different criteria by taking advantage of the interactive medium. Inside, Disco Elysium, and Kentucky Route Zero, just to name a few.
Mainstream gaming is still getting there, but to me titles like The Last of Us Part 2 are on par with classic HBO shows like Six Feet Under.
I have read many books and seen many movies that I feel are worse artistic works than the best games, but I also think it's a hard comparison to make.
There is no music that compares to "War and peace" or paintings like "1984", nor is the movie "Alien" like any book. Describing H R Gigers monster design with words will not have the same artistic impact.
I think different creations can be be great artistic works on entirely incomparable axes.
Posterity only remembers the most acclaimed pieces, there are plenty of airport novels no one remembers and that have nothing to envy to modern Tiktok.
Yes, there are. I made a deliberate decision about 10 years ago to only read good novels just because I'd read so many terrible ones! But I'm hoping my question will lead to some good narrative game recommendations.
Red Dead Redemption 2 is one great artistic work. If you haven't played it, you haven't experienced the peak of a massive wildly recognized medium. Last of Us (the show) was essentially copied verbatim from the video game, scene for scene.
On the entire opposite side of the complexity spectrum, both Limbo and Inside are great artistic works.
please play gorogoa for an artsy, moving puzzle game.
(for me personally the benchmark is the last express, but i guess generally reviews are mixed but please take a look, too)
That's a great question. It's a mixture of technical skill and intellectual depth.
For example, throughout Scotland placenames are a mixture of old Gaelic, modern Gaelic and Norse, and then there are the Anglicised versions on top. So learning what placenames mean is something I did in school and it's a fascinating subject.
So when Gildor is talking with Frodo, and mentions the "...Branduin, that you call the Brandywine..." (quote from memory; might not be correct), that's exactly what happens with placenames. It's that level of depth (in all aspects, this is just an example) that makes it a great work. You can read more on just the name of a river at https://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Baranduin
Enjoyment of art is, as you say, totally subjective, but anyone who's artistic can generally identify when something is a great work even if they don't personally like it.
Everything has shortcomings but as a work of literature lotr is very obviously a great artistic work and the fact that you don't know that tells me immediately that you've never produced anything worthwhile.
I think books are still the best way for a single mind to communicate complex ideas. Movies and games are teamwork, many ideas from several people (for better and worse).
Maybe generative AI will get to the point where a single author can create a comic, movie or game with similar depths as that of books but it hasn't yet.
Hardly it almost always a shortened more approachable summary of something described in a book. Also (IMHO) videos are a horrible format for transferring knowledge, it’s slow AF compared to reading and impossible to search, you have to consume it mostly sequentially
Sure, you could buy a book about snes (not even sure if any good ones exist) and read about that... but you're not that interested into the topic, because it's something old and not something you'll actually do... but here's a 6 minute video, that you'll probably watch... and if it's interesting, you'll go down a playlist and see "how thing were done" "back then" and learn something new.
Ever heard of Tefifon music player? Neither have I, until i saw the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqfVS6ahArs ... i would have never bought a book on ancient music players, but I learned something new by watching a short video.
Sometimes all you need is a summary, you're not a chemist, SNES programmer or an old music player collector, but you still learn a lot, and all those things are topics, where you just don't buy a book, because th 10, 20 minute video covers all that you need and want to know.
I dont think so. For "great works" all that stuff has been covered somewhere if you really care.
You're putting way too much faith into people's intelligence (or projecting your own onto them) if you think people are picking up the nuanced bits just by reading.
Which still to the thread starts point. All of that stuff could be captured in a diff medium and to my point if it's worth capturing in the first place can be summarized and the additional stuff you're mentioning written as bullet points.
This is a process vs product issue. Yes, the product ("here's what this is / is about") can be captured wherever, but the process of engagement is the valuable bit.
Of course no one - no matter how intelligent! - will pick up every bit of nuance. That's why engaging with what other people think (also a process!) about [whatever] is an important part of skill development. I don't think anyone is incapable of engaging in this - even if their sophistication will always be limited by their intelligence / affinity / time / etc etc etc.
This is a useful paradigm under which to consider other skills. Computer code (product) is (approaching...) wide availability from LLMs, but the skills necessary to be a good developer come through a process that involves independently solving problems and asking questions that have (at least at first!) already been addressed by others.
Reading a good book is a closest approximation we have to actually meeting the author in person. There are books that I read years ago that had such a big emotional impact they probably affected my personality in some way. I barely remember a single youtube video I watched last week.
Why bother doing anything difficult or burdensome if one has the option to take the easy route?
This man sounds like he has a real passion for what he does. He's been doing it for quite a long time, and like you pointed out, he could've checked out and got a salary job at some company. He didn't. He gets to live his life doing something exciting that he loves.
Living your life always doing what's safe doesn't sound very intriguing.
That's a good point. Systems like this fixed onto the actual sources of these emissions would be far more effective at capturing carbon, and most likely produce far more fuel, for the same- if not, a not much worse price.
I wonder how effective this system is at producing e-kerosene, as well as how cost-effective producing fuel this way is. It's certainly a step in the right direction to offsetting carbon emissions.
I also wonder how much excess carbon we can keep in the atmosphere without causing catastrophe. A slightly warmer planet with more CO_2 for more plants to use to grow may be better for humanity and the global ecosystem in general.
> At least one video from the event displayed an Optimus bartender acknowledging that it was being “assisted by a human.”
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