• agamemnonymous@sh.itjust.works
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    4 hours ago

    Potatoes are definitely apples. The French call them “pommes de terre”, apples of the earth. Ipso facto.

    I will not be accepting questions at this time.

  • I Cast Fist@programming.dev
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    5 hours ago

    I hate when we look at something and think “not sure if that obvious troll is actually a troll and not a completely deluded person, or a dumb bot”

  • HollowNaught@lemmy.world
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    8 hours ago

    From a biological standpoint, we don’t classify things as vegetables. From a culinary standpoint, we do

    Stop trying to apply biological concepts to my dinner

  • lime!@feddit.nu
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    11 hours ago

    ai visionary/harry potter fanfiction master eliezer yudkowsky, folks. the man’s intellect is perpendicular to the rest of humanity. truly inspiring.

    this is why i can’t take anything he says seriously.

    • skulblaka@sh.itjust.works
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      11 hours ago

      The more I see him in the real world the more very upset I become that I genuinely really liked his story. HPMOR is a banger, possibly one of my favorite pieces of amateur literature in existence.

      I didn’t know the author was a wanker at the time of reading, and now that I do, I want to make myself retroactively un-like his work, but I can’t.

        • uuldika@lemmy.ml
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          1 hour ago

          Roko’s Basilisk is real, but only for LW rationalists. living with contradictions in our thinking and using gut feeling rather than obsessively chaining Bayesian priors together protected the rest of us.

          seriously, Yudkowsky and others were tormented by the thought of the Basilisk. it’s a literal mind virus. just one that requires a very specific host (true believers in Timeless Decision Theory.)

        • jsomae@lemmy.ml
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          5 hours ago

          Roko’s basilisk is a really cool metaphor for fascism. If you help the regime come into existence, you are rewarded; if you fight it, you are punished but only if you are unsuccessful.

          • Fusselwurm@feddit.org
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            3 hours ago

            If you help the regime come into existence, you are rewarded

            well don’t count on that. totalitarian regimes have a tendency to be paranoid and to enact rather unpleasant purges at every level of the organisation.

      • lime!@feddit.nu
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        11 hours ago

        it is, based on most people who read it, actually very good. the problems start when you analyse it in context with the author. ironically, same thing is true for the source material.

        • uuldika@lemmy.ml
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          1 hour ago

          the context makes it better, for me.

          Harry is the protagonist, but he’s not a good person. he’s a ruthlessly utilitarian sociopath who takes himself far too seriously, but it’s entertaining to watch his thought processes. again, much like the author.

        • Impassionata@lemmy.world
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          10 hours ago

          most people have bad taste. hpmor spreads vapid grandiose intellectualism and the people who like it should act more like skulblaka: they were trivially manipulated by a cult leader.

          to be fair, though, eliezer yudkowsky is being sardonic in the OP text.

          • jsomae@lemmy.ml
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            5 hours ago

            HPMOR definitely has its share of problems – a mary sue main character for one. But it was incredibly unique at the time it came out, in particular for taking the world of harry potter down as many pegs as it could with such exacting precision. I think it’s one of the all-time greats (of fanfics) personally, but you definitely have to get past how full of himself the author is.

            • Impassionata@lemmy.world
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              4 hours ago

              the thing is

              you don’t have to get past how full of himself the author is

              the entire cult the author founded is in denial of the fascism

              • jsomae@lemmy.ml
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                7 minutes ago

                If you prefer, there’s the “post-rats,” which are a spin-off of the same cult and are pretty much identical except every few minutes they make sure to mention how much they don’t like yudkowsky anymore.

  • AllNewTypeFace@leminal.space
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    14 hours ago

    That’s what happens when you use your fearsome intellect to work things out from first principles without bothering to consult the real world.

  • Treczoks@lemmy.world
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    14 hours ago

    I hope his biology teacher sees this post and beats him with his biology school book.

  • CosmicTurtle0@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    9 hours ago

    Vegetable is a political (lower case P) term, defined by legislation for tax purposes.

    Tomato is clearly a fruit botanically but classified as a vegetable in the United States (and most countries) and is taxed at a lower amount than fruits.