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Brian Hawkins @brianhawkins.bsky.social · 1h

Honestly we need to tax billionaires out of existence for *their own* good, too. Brain rot of this magnitude is hard to achieve if you hear the word “no” once in a while.

Sharon @sharonk.bsky.social · 4h

thiel, man, what the fuck are you talking about

He describes the plot of Watchmen, a 1986 graphic novel involving superheroes grappling with moral questions about humanity against the backdrop of impending nuclear war:

The antihero Ozymandias, the antichrist-type figure, is sort of an early-modern person. He believes this will be a timeless and eternal solution – eternal world peace. Moore is sort of a late-modern. In early modernity, you have ideal solutions, ‘perfect’ solutions to calculus. In late modernity, things are sort of probabilistic. And at some point, he asks Dr Manhattan whether the world government is going to last. And he says that ‘nothing lasts forever.’ So you embrace the antichrist and it still doesn’t work.

Thiel later finds biblical meaning in the manga One Piece, discussing how he believes it represents a future where an antichrist-like one-world government has repressed science. He believes that the hero, Monkey D Luffy, represents a Christlike figure.

In One Piece, you are set in a fantasy world, again sort of an alternate earth, but it’s 800 years into the reign of this one-world state. Which, as the story unfolds, gradually gets darker and darker. You sort of realize, in my interpretation, who runs the world and it’s something like the antichrist. There’s Luffy, a pirate who wears a red straw hat, sort of like Christ’s crown of thorns. And then towards the end of the story, transforms into a figure who resembles Christ in Revelation.

Thiel, along with a researcher and writer at Thiel Capital, explored these ideas at greater length in an essay for the religious journal First Things earlier this month.

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Brian Hawkins @brianhawkins.bsky.social · 14h

Buddy looks like Joffrey Baratheon dressed as Patrick Bateman for Halloween

󠀁󠁿⁢⁢⁤⁤⁢⁢⁢⁤⁢⁢⁤⁤⁢⁢⁤⁤⁢⁢⁤⁤⁢⁢⁤⁤⁢⁢⁤⁤⁢⁤⁤⁤⁤⁤⁤⁤⁢⁢⁢⁢⁤⁢👻 @0x0.boo · 15h

RIP TikTok 🪦

Barron Trump tipped for top TikTok job

US president’s 19-year-old son could be appointed to the app’s board

go.stonking.com

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Brian Hawkins @brianhawkins.bsky.social · 16h

The new King of the Hill episodes are sweet. Not always my thing but I needed that today

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Brian Hawkins @brianhawkins.bsky.social · 23h

What I don’t believe is that computing has to pass through any sort of simulacrum of human intelligence to do that. We can build specialized computing systems that can do specific things faster than humans can. (We already do!)

Brian Hawkins @brianhawkins.bsky.social · 23h

For the record: I think things can be a lot better than they are. I think clean(er) tech is possible, that there are still step changes in efficiency to be realized. And I believe better computing can help get us there.

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Brian Hawkins @brianhawkins.bsky.social · 23h

What do we do then? Do we turn it off?

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Brian Hawkins @brianhawkins.bsky.social · 23h

But it isn’t enough to do all of that AND continue to power the AI systems that we need to build the tech to reach those theoretical limits in practice without net carbon outputs. We have to keep feeding the beast to make this happen. The Second Law will always prevail.

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Brian Hawkins @brianhawkins.bsky.social · 23h

And the system tells us that we cannot. That it has found the theoretical limits of efficiency that can be realized with materials innovation, with heat exchange, with smart grids, whatever. And this is great! We can light the world and we can feed people and we can have transportation.

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Brian Hawkins @brianhawkins.bsky.social · 23h

It’s this: suppose we build all the gigawatts of capacity needed for the super intelligent system that can figure out anything. We bring it online. And we ask it how we can power it in a carbon-neutral way.

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Brian Hawkins @brianhawkins.bsky.social · 23h

I don’t even mean the cultish weirdos who think they’re going to live forever in a galactic supercomputer. I mean (comparatively) science-based normies like Bill Gates.

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Brian Hawkins @brianhawkins.bsky.social · 23h

Here’s the thought experiment I really want to hear put to the AI boosters, especially the ones that claim the climate impacts aren’t worth worrying about because they believe a sufficiently advanced AGI will enable advances in tech that will solve the climate.

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Brian Hawkins @brianhawkins.bsky.social · 1d

Alien

What can I say about this damn near perfect movie that hasn’t already been said? Watched it w/ my 13 y/o niece last night and she calls it one of her favorites. That’s staying power, and rightly so.

Alien (1979) ⭐ 8.5 | Horror, Sci-Fi

1h 57m | R

m.imdb.com

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Brian Hawkins @brianhawkins.bsky.social · 1d

The average enlisted kid today has no perspective on how much the public can turn on them.

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Brian Hawkins @brianhawkins.bsky.social · 1d

If you’re my age-ish you grew up with “be all you can be” and a full court press to rehabilitate the image of the military, and you probably eventually found out why.

If you’re a bit younger you don’t remember a time before “support the troops”

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Brian Hawkins @brianhawkins.bsky.social · 1d

Ask some Vietnam vets what coming home was like for them after the public found out about My Lai.

You think it’s going to be better for you if you do it in Chicago and it’s live-streamed?

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Brian Hawkins @brianhawkins.bsky.social · 1d

If the US military opens fire on civilians in the US are we still going to let them board airplanes first or can we at least let that one go

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Brian Hawkins @brianhawkins.bsky.social · 1d

For my first Canadian Thanksgiving in Canada I will be contributing my bourbon* sweet potatoes

*I had to do some research** to find a sufficiently bourbon-like Canadian made substitute***

**hard, but important research

***Forty Creek Copper Bold

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Brian Hawkins @brianhawkins.bsky.social · 2d

If we ever get out of this mess the next president could do a hell of a lot worse than nominating Sally Kornbluth to run/repair Education or HHS (if she’ll do it)

MIT rejects Trump administration deal for priority federal funding

MIT is one of the nine schools that were asked to agree to adopt conservative priorities and policies in exchange for funding perks.

www.washingtonpost.com

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Brian Hawkins @brianhawkins.bsky.social · 2d

I have a lot of respect for their president, and she is meeting the moment in a way that unfortunately very few of her peers seem able or willing to match

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Brian Hawkins @brianhawkins.bsky.social · 2d

I’m no apologist for Maduro (frankly I don’t know enough about Venezuela to have an informed opinion) but I guess today a lot of people are going to find out that the opposition to him is…pretty right wing

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Reposted by Brian Hawkins

Adam Serwer @adamserwer.bsky.social · 2d

Maga patriotism is just narcissism, America to them is what they see in the mirror not what it actually is—they’re incapable of loving that country bsky.app/profile/atru...

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 2d

Mike Johnson: "We're so angry about it. I mean, I'm a very patient guy, but I've had it with these people. The theory we have right now -- they have a hate America rally that's scheduled for October 18 on the National Mall. It's the pro-Hamas wing and antifa people ... "

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Brian Hawkins @brianhawkins.bsky.social · 2d

Ha! Maybe

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Brian Hawkins @brianhawkins.bsky.social · 2d

I by “youth” here I mean (checks notes) a dude who is 40

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Brian Hawkins @brianhawkins.bsky.social · 2d

I wish Democrats in senior positions fought Republicans half as hard as they fight the youth and left wings of their own party

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Brian Hawkins @brianhawkins.bsky.social · 2d

My cooking hack for (almost) anything savory if it’s not *quite* there is fish sauce; basically the same idea.

Those pulses need umami!

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