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Think of the Children!

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Abusing his ultimate power, without an iota of thought for any of them, he terminated millions of young lives. Admittedly it was instantaneous - painless - but they were alive and now they’re not: hobbies and projects... gone; desires to impress friends and parents... gone; aspirations... gone. Not just potential lives - these were developed personalities with relationships. Gone.

With one thoughtless act he erased every record of their existence. No history books or grave records note their passing. This is an obliterated generation.

Why?

All so that his protagonists could meddle themselves a happier future. Time travel is repugnant.

On the Myth of Friendly AGI

There's been a lot of discussion on the subject of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) and the risks involved in creating such a thing. Joshua Fox presents a good summary

Wake Up

in

Opened my eyes, glanced at my eyes-up status. What?!?

It's a month since I remember going to bed, or else my clock is fritzy. There's a stack of messages waiting with subject lines like "Glad you backed up?", and "What a brilliant way to die!"

Shit!

Another life loss. Insurance premiums will be murder. I wonder how I went this time. Time to review the life-log for my last day. And this time, no denial: what I see and hear in my log is what I did, even if it seems weird seeing events without the accompanying thoughts.

Deity Makeover

I've been staring into the headlights of a fast approaching Christmas. I wanted to write a little seasonal verse but nothing worth writing has crossed my mind. Maybe it'll happen in the next few days.

In the meantime, here's a pastiche that I threw together for a comment on Making Light. (Not exactly thrown together, since it took me a couple of hours, but it's definitely not polished.) The topic under discussion was how fictional characters feel about the way authors manipulate them.

"You are old, Father Yahweh," the fabulist said,

Debt

I am a child of a western democracy and I've inherited the luxury of infrastructure and industry built on generations of unwitting exploitation of Earth's resources. For this I feel no guilt, but a sense of obligation to the rest of the world.

I want my government, the Australian government, to commit serious amounts of money to reducing greenhouse gas emissions and the mitigation of the effects of climate change in developing nations. I understand that this will reduce my current prosperity. I reject the ignorance or greed that expects to enjoy the inheritance of a developed nation while denying the debt on which it was built.

Fixed login screwup

I found out what was causing login problems from the main login box. It wasn't Drupal being funky. It was one of my backward compatibility attempts -- trying to redirect old search index entries to the new URL mapping. Fortunately easy to fix.

Dennett - understanding the evolution of religion

It's a long talk, but it's good to see Dennett tackling questions like "How does a clergyman become an atheist but still remain a preacher?" and "Is it possible to go through a theological seminary and still believe in God?"

The Evolution of Confusion.

 

Drupal login problems

Looks like Drupal is doing some strange things with login. If I click the login link for adding comments, it lets me log in. If I use the login panel on the upper right side it fails.

New accounts disabled

I've disabled new account creation temporarily - at least until I can install a quasi-Turing test to prevent the invasion of the robots. Those who used to be able to post comments on the VirJournal should still be able to log in and do so. For others, there's still the contact form (linked from the bottom of the page) if you're wanting to make initial contact.

Drupal

I've now converted my blog and scrapbook to Drupal. It's a big content management tool to use for a little single user blog, but I wanted to try out Drupal as a candidate for reworking The OEDILF into a highly integrated, more manageable site. So far Drupal looks like it has the goods.

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