Pete Wolfendale
@deontologistics.bsky.social
580 followers 170 following 390 posts
Wandering philosopher. Purveyor of Platonic heresy, Kantian computationalism, and Hegelian minimalism. (he/him/it which speaks)
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Reposted by Pete Wolfendale
ironspike.bsky.social
The one that always gets me is that the last American born into slavery died the year John Lennon released “Imagine.”
raxkingisdead.bsky.social
you ever think about those real weird overlaps. like tennessee williams might have listened to the ramones
deontologistics.bsky.social
Henry Somers-Hall is advertising for people wanting to apply for Leverhulme Early Career Fellowships at Royal Holloway. I think he'd probably be into this.
deontologistics.bsky.social
Love Ken. But I think 'sentience' is a terminally confused concept hereabouts. It tends to collapse three things together: intelligence, consciousness, and personhood (or agency, more generally). These three can be pulled apart, and consciousness can be pulled apart yet further.
deontologistics.bsky.social
Incandescent anger decaying into sadness. An all too familiar arc. Small, in the scope of things, but too personal to simply ignore. If only I believed in grace.
Reposted by Pete Wolfendale
kevinjkircher.com
Sometimes I think about how from 1935-1975ish, Bell Labs produced an insane amount of revolutionary science and technology, including 11 Nobel Prizes, the transistor, UNIX, C, the laser, the solar cell, information theory, etc. The secret? Provide scientists with ample, steady, no-strings funding.
sites.stat.columbia.edu
deontologistics.bsky.social
I do actually have a paper in my forthcoming book that addresses these sorts of questions, though it doesn’t give definitive answers in particular cases. The key point is that autonomous beings have (some) control over their own identity conditions.
deontologistics.bsky.social
One of my favourite scenarios, from the TTRPG Eclipse Phase: what if there’s a place you can only visit if you give them a copy of you that they will subject to torture under simulation to confirm your good intentions. Is that something you can consent to?
deontologistics.bsky.social
Eldar got so woke that they collectively woke Slaanesh and then had to tone it down.
deontologistics.bsky.social
My Aeon essay covers this, though I have no idea when it will appear.
deontologistics.bsky.social
My position is always that there are at least three concepts that get conflated and used metonymically in these debates: intelligence, consciousness, and personhood (or agency more generally). Consciousness is the most confused and contains its own conflated subconcepts, sentience included.
deontologistics.bsky.social
I’ve just finished reading the Yudkowsky/Soares book (though I’ve not gone through the supplements in detail yet). Think I know what tack I want to take in a review. Has anyone found any good reviews already, just so I know what else has already been said?
deontologistics.bsky.social
It is fascinating how the nostalgia for a past that never really existed that animates fascism is being intensified by technology that can actively visualise this non-existent past. Nostalgia meets hyperstition by way of automated fantasy.
Reposted by Pete Wolfendale
harikunzru.bsky.social
While I’m on a posting roll, I just realized that the way to save the Humanities is by rebranding Higher Ed as where you go to learn how to Do Your Own Research
deontologistics.bsky.social
This is good and all, but what I really want is a story about the banking system in Commorragh. Soul banking. Slave market futures. ROI on realspace raids. Interest still paid on pre-fall accounts. An ancap paradise with Medici style hijinx.
lastpositivist.bsky.social
I do think there's potential for a 40K fanfic themed around modern monetary theory, in particular re how the Imperium's tithe being in direct goods and services makes it difficult to form a stable currency, and that leading to some political instability on some planet somewhere.
deontologistics.bsky.social
One from left-field: Superhot VR.
tiredgenerally.bsky.social
(honest question) what are the “good” video games? artistically i mean, not in a “i enjoyed this escapist slop” kind of way
gravitysra1nbow.bsky.social
Well. It's not Red Dead Redemption 2, but it's like one of three video games I'd genuinely consider good.
Reposted by Pete Wolfendale
peligrietzer.bsky.social
Constantly shocked by the cottage industry of tenured philosophers who used to do M&E and now publish papers on social justice that literally don't contain a single paragraph a random 18 year old college activist couldn't put together on the spot
Reposted by Pete Wolfendale
quantian.bsky.social
Imma be real with you guys the "TESCREAL" stuff is basically the libleft version of rightist paranoia over "Cultural Marxism", where you just smash together a half-dozen things that annoy you and go "these things are all connected and being pushed by a nefarious secret cabal of my political enemies"
Reposted by Pete Wolfendale
slothropsmap.bsky.social
I do not like that LLMs are turning folks in our coalition into IP zealots.
Reposted by Pete Wolfendale
helenhester.bsky.social
Can't believe it's been a decade...
Reposted by Pete Wolfendale
phdhurtbrain.bsky.social
Giving students thoughtful, personalized feedback and instruction is not a problem that originates from the difficulty for an instructor to generate feedback, it is a problem that originates from institutions pivoting to student:instructor ratios where that dynamic is not logistically feasible.