If my so-called "friends" are going to selectively pretend not to know basic Sequences shit in a way that has clearly been optimized for tricking me into cutting my dick off (independently of the empirical evidence determining whether or not we live in one of the possible worlds where cutting my dick off is a good idea), and still won't correct the mistake after I (and Michael, and Ben, and Sarah, and Zvi—and Jessica, who can be presumed to not share my object-level-politically-derived biases, because she seems pretty happy about having had her dick cut off) spend thousands of words patiently explaining the problem ... how do I know these "friends" aren't already secretly in the pay of the mine dwarves? They're certainly acting like it.
A distributed intelligence that's using your former friends for processing power and actuators is trying to confuse you into cutting your dick off. Another former friend says, "Oh, that's just an exception; the distributed intelligence isn't usually that crazy. You shouldn't stop believing its story about how you need to give it your lunch money so that it can save the world." You think for a moment. "I guess that makes sense," you say, and hand over your lunch money.
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+* the moment in October 2016 when I switched sides http://zackmdavis.net/blog/2016/10/late-onset/ http://zackmdavis.net/blog/2017/03/brand-rust/
+https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/jNAAZ9XNyt82CXosr/mirrors-and-paintings
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+Men who wish they were women do not particularly resemble actual women! We just—don't? This seems kind of obvious, really? Telling the difference between fantasy and reality is kind of an important life skill?
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+I mean it just as I might say "actual meat" to distinguish such from [plant-based imitations](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meat_analogue), or "actual wood" to distinguish such from [composite materials](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wood-plastic_composite), without anyone raising an eyebrow. The general concept here is that of _mimickry_. The point is not to denigrate the mimic—one might have any number of reasons to _prefer_ meat substitutes or composite wood to the real thing. (Nonhuman animal welfare! Termite-proof-ness!) One might have any number of reasons to _prefer_ trans women to the real thing. (Though I still feel uncomfortable trying to think of any in particular.) The _point_ is that I need language that _asymmetrically_ distinguishes the _original_ thing, from the artificial thing that's trying to mimic its form while not being exactly the same thing, either by design or due to technological limitations.
projects / Ultimately_Untrue_Thought.git / blobdiff