Zack M. Davis [Thu, 21 Dec 2023 05:58:31 +0000 (21:58 -0800)]
memoir: pt. 3 section headers
If both Said (private correspondence) and Ray
(https://www.greaterwrong.com/posts/ZjXtjRQaD2b4PAser/a-hill-of-validity-in-defense-of-meaning/comment/Lmhum2tXLXzmbKvm5)
agree that I need section headers, then I probably need section
headers.
I was feeling reluctant about it, but after doing it, I agree that
this is a lot better.
I have mixed feelings about giving the "Why are you a boy?" anecdote
the prominence of its own section. (I wanted it to be subtle
foreshadowing, but if it gets its own section, then it's blantant
foreshadowing, which I choose to lampshade with a Suspiciously
Specific Denial.)
I'm not sure where the defaults were inherited from, but <h2> was too
big and <h3> was too small, so I edit the CSS to make <h3> bigger.
(Ideally, the titles would be anchor links ... do I need to write a
Pelican patch or plugin for that?)
Zack M. Davis [Tue, 19 Dec 2023 06:22:12 +0000 (22:22 -0800)]
correct year of autogenderphilia reply
I was confused why this apparently didn't publish—that is, why it
didn't appear at the newest post after `git push`ing. This is what I
get for letting it rot in drafts for decades of ever (two years).
Zack M. Davis [Fri, 15 Dec 2023 06:22:16 +0000 (22:22 -0800)]
check in
(Re the blogroll drop: why do Blogger blogs get deleted sometimes? If
you made a sexology blog good enough that I wanted to blogroll it, why
wouldn't you just leave it up? Or was this Google being evil?)
Zack M. Davis [Thu, 14 Dec 2023 02:20:46 +0000 (18:20 -0800)]
memoir: revise childhood transition section with more quotes
I suspect coach might condemn the word choices as cowardice (I'm
making these edits in response to feedback from someone on the other
side the issue), but the fact that I'm including more quotes (which
are realistic even if—if—they're hypothetical) just seems like a
Pareto improvement no matter what words I write around them.
(People on the other side will see nothing wrong with the quotes and
be glad that I'm citing evidence instead of confabulating assumptions
about events where I wasn't present; people who see things my way will
look at the dialogue and cry, "This is grooming!")
Zack M. Davis [Wed, 13 Dec 2023 01:24:56 +0000 (17:24 -0800)]
tie off "Hrunkner Unnerby"
I knew I wanted a post commemerating my connection to this B plot
thread, but I wasn't sure what I wanted to say about it besides a mere
summary. I'm on deadline; I suppose this will do.
Zack M. Davis [Tue, 12 Dec 2023 20:58:05 +0000 (12:58 -0800)]
pull the trigger on "Beyond the Binary"
This one has been sitting in the `drafts` directory for decades of
ever, but it's good—classic TSbUUT content! I just sanded off some
italics that were jutting out.
Zack M. Davis [Thu, 30 Nov 2023 03:13:29 +0000 (19:13 -0800)]
memoir pt. 5 edits: tie off Xu reply; trim Scott vs. Vassarites intro
A while back, coach took issue with my "raw factional conflict"
characterization, arguing instead that Scott was just saying what
everyone else was too polite to, that Jessica is nuts.
I don't care that much about defending my view here, which suggests
saving wordcount by cutting that graf-and-a-half and transitioning
directly to my defense that being a Vassarite didn't harm me (which I
do care about and is worth the wordcount).
Zack M. Davis [Fri, 17 Nov 2023 05:08:18 +0000 (21:08 -0800)]
write up my Genspect take
I'm not sure this is a good or interesting post, but it's timely. It's
in the 2023 directory despite having the draft status because I'll
probably pull the trigger on it tomorrow.
Zack M. Davis [Wed, 25 Oct 2023 00:34:21 +0000 (17:34 -0700)]
memoir: poke at pt. 6
Given the date in October, I'm thinking that I should be pushing to
get pt. 3–5 polished and shipped ASAP, such that forcing myself to
finish this section isn't a priority; all of the dath ilan stuff is
less important than the core strike.
Zack M. Davis [Mon, 9 Oct 2023 23:42:31 +0000 (16:42 -0700)]
"Fake Deeply": adjust transphobia strategy
The slur usage had me feeling shy about publishing. Coach thought it
was inconsistent with the pronouns. (A viewpoint character that uses
the slur, should also misgender.) Demoting the slur (to just "trans")
and inserting one quieted scare
(http://zackmdavis.net/blog/2012/10/the-quieted-scare-convention/)
makes the characterization more consistent and will probably land
better.
Zack M. Davis [Sat, 7 Oct 2023 21:42:27 +0000 (14:42 -0700)]
editing "Standing Under the Same Sky"
I'm thinking that I shouldn't call this pt. 5, because even with my
efforts to cut things, the Eliezerfic fight is going to be large
enough and cohesive enough to be its own post, at pt. 6 (resurrecting
"Zevi's Choice" as pt. 5).
Zack M. Davis [Sat, 7 Oct 2023 18:05:12 +0000 (11:05 -0700)]
"Fake Deeply": adjust tone
Coach said that the ex-ante-probability thing was too much
cultspeak. The thing is, I do want our protagonist to be smart: he
knows probability because he's an ML research engineer. Chloë's
"dignified ... heroic responsibility ... constant vigilance ... fire
alarm" all in one paragraph is supposed to be a purer example of
rat-cultspeak. But, yes, "chance is low" is less shibbolethy than
"assign a low probability", even if the latter is perfectly understood
by non-cultists.
I also had removed one set of scare-ish quotes around "AI safety" in a
previous edit pass, and changed my mind this time.
Zack M. Davis [Sat, 7 Oct 2023 01:44:07 +0000 (18:44 -0700)]
memoir: pre-cut "state of Steven" §?
I read the email, and I don't feel super-motivated to summarize it,
which could be laziness, but could also be a sign that this part just
isn't that important? (The goal of the post is not to exhaustively
summarize every email I sent between May 2019 and January 2021, but to
hit the highlights and give a sense of what happened.) Pt. 3 is at
25400 words already; I'm going to want to slim down the sections that
are already there. Maybe it's okay that I just ... don't write this
part, as opposed to my old strategy of wasting a lot of time writing a
play-by-play and then throwing it away??
Zack M. Davis [Sat, 7 Oct 2023 01:06:28 +0000 (18:06 -0700)]
memoir: rework bridge to dath ilan material; yank scrap to scrapfile
I had a lot of notes and prewritten prose sitting in the ancillary
post draft file, but I'm also trying to rip out dath ilan content from
pt. 5 (because the part that anyone cares about is me fighting 1-on-1
with Big Yud; the object-level literary analysis goes in the ancillary
post, and most words about me fighting other nobodies in the chatroom
gets cut).