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PUT YOUR BEARD IN MY MOUTH
we're not kids anymore.
dirt enthusiast
TVSTRANGERTHINGS

Product Placement

if i look back, i am lost
Cosimo Galluzzi

Kiana Khansmith
KIROKAZE

shark vs the universe
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izzy's playlists!
Xuebing Du
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Peter Solarz
Three Goblin Art
Mike Driver
wallacepolsom
seen from Bulgaria

seen from United States
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@libre11
Darren O'Connor
"Timnit Gebru was fired from Google in December 2020 for refusing to retract a research paper, and every single warning that paper made about large language models has now happened at a scale the industry spent 4 years trying to make people forget about.
Her name is Timnit Gebru.
She co-led the Ethical AI team at Google. She co-wrote a paper called "On the Dangers of Stochastic Parrots" with Emily Bender at the University of Washington and two other researchers. The paper was 14 pages long. It was submitted to a top AI ethics conference. And it was the reason Google decided that one of the most senior Black women in AI research could no longer work there.
The story Google told publicly was that she resigned. The story she told, confirmed by 2,695 of her colleagues in an open letter, was that she was fired by email while on vacation because she refused to either retract the paper or remove her name from it.
The paper had not even been published yet.
Here is what she actually wrote, and why every prediction inside it has now come true.
The first warning was about scale itself. Bender and Gebru argued that training ever-larger models on ever-larger scrapes of the internet would produce systems that appeared fluent but had no actual understanding of language. They called these systems stochastic parrots because they would repeat patterns from training data with statistical confidence and zero comprehension. The paper predicted that this apparent intelligence would fool both users and developers into trusting outputs that were structurally incapable of being reliable.
This was 2020. GPT-3 had just come out. The paper predicted the hallucination problem before anyone had a word for it.
The second warning was about bias amplification. The paper documented in detail that internet-scale training data contains systematic overrepresentation of dominant viewpoints and underrepresentation of marginalized ones. The models would not just absorb this bias. They would amplify it, because the optimization process rewards confident outputs, and confidence in language patterns tracks frequency in the training set.
The prediction was that hiring tools built on these models would discriminate against women. That healthcare triage tools would underperform on Black patients. That loan approval systems would entrench inequality while presenting their decisions as neutral algorithmic judgment.
Every one of those things has now been documented in deployment.
Amazon's hiring algorithm penalized resumes that contained the word "women" in any context. Healthcare risk scoring algorithms used by major US hospitals were found to systematically underestimate the medical needs of Black patients. Apple Card's credit algorithm gave wives credit lines 10x lower than their husbands for the same financial profile.
The third warning was about environmental cost. The paper calculated that training a single large language model produced emissions equivalent to the lifetime output of 5 cars. The prediction was that the race to scale would create an environmental footprint that would eventually rival entire industries.
In 2024, Google's emissions were up 48% from 2019, and the company explicitly blamed AI infrastructure. Microsoft's were up 29%, same reason. Both companies have now quietly abandoned the climate commitments they were publicly celebrating the year Gebru was fired.
The fourth warning was about documentation. The paper argued that the training datasets being assembled were too large for anyone to actually audit. Nobody at Google, OpenAI, Meta, or any other lab could tell you with confidence what was in the data their models were trained on. This was not a temporary problem to be solved later. It was a permanent feature of the approach.
In 2023, researchers discovered that the LAION-5B dataset, used to train Stable Diffusion and other major image models, contained thousands of images of child sexual abuse material. The companies that had trained on the dataset had no way of knowing. The paper predicted that category of failure 3 years before it was found.
The fifth warning was the one Google cared about most.
Bender and Gebru argued that the deployment of these systems would centralize linguistic and cultural power in the hands of the small number of companies that could afford to train them. The internet would become a place where the dominant voice was a statistical average of dominant voices, presented as a neutral assistant. Languages underrepresented in the training data would degrade over time as more web content was generated by these systems and fed back into the next training run.
This is now happening in real time. A 2024 study found that 57% of new web content in English is AI-generated or AI-assisted. Researchers studying low-resource languages have documented active degradation in translation quality, because the synthetic content fed back into training is itself worse in those languages.
The paper Google fired her for predicted the model collapse problem before model collapse had a name.
The mechanism behind why this all happened is the part of her work that nobody quotes.
Gebru's argument was not that AI is dangerous in some abstract sci-fi sense. Her argument was that AI is dangerous in a very specific structural sense. The technology was being built by a small group of researchers who shared similar backgrounds, worked at similar companies, and were rewarded for shipping products faster than competitors. The incentive structure made it impossible for safety, ethics, and bias concerns to slow anything down. Anyone inside the system who raised those concerns was either ignored, sidelined, or removed.
She was making that argument from inside Google.
Then Google proved her right by removing her.
The team Google had built to make sure their AI was safe was dismantled in 90 days because they did the job they had been hired to do. Margaret Mitchell, the other co-lead of the Ethical AI team, was fired two months after Gebru for searching through her own emails for evidence of how Gebru had been treated.
Gebru did not stop. She founded DAIR, the Distributed AI Research Institute, in 2021. The mission is to do AI research outside the control of the companies that have a financial interest in not hearing the answers.
Every prediction in the Stochastic Parrots paper has now been validated by deployment. Hallucinations are an industry-wide problem the largest labs cannot solve. Bias amplification has been documented in hiring, healthcare, lending, and criminal justice. Environmental costs are larger than entire small countries. Training data audits remain impossible. Model collapse is an active research crisis at every major lab.
The question worth sitting with is the one almost no one in the industry will say out loud.
Every researcher with the technical credibility to call out these problems watched what happened to her in December 2020 and made a calculation about their own career. The number of people willing to speak publicly about safety and ethics issues inside the major AI labs collapsed after that firing and has not recovered.
The researcher Google fired for warning about exactly what is now happening was right.
The company that fired her is now the second-largest deployer of the technology she warned about.
And the people inside that company who agree with her are not allowed to say so."
+
Rebecca Solnit
Read this. The link to the paper discussed is here: https://dl.acm.org/doi/epdf/10.1145/3442188.3445922
reblogging for visibility.
No More Margins
I'm still getting used to her — this version of me who feels like a quiet evolution, the one who's half chaos, half clarity, and somehow still intentional. She's new, but she's also… not. More like a reawakening. The next phase in becoming. I didn’t realize that choosing to be unpolished would eventually feel like becoming. And now that she’s here, she doesn’t tiptoe. She doesn’t ask if she’s too much. She just arrives — raw, steady, unbothered — like she’s been waiting for me to stop folding myself into shapes that made everyone else comfortable. And when she steps forward, she doesn’t just take the stage — she fills it, like she finally remembered she was never meant to live in the margins of her own life. She stands there with this quiet certainty, the kind that doesn’t need to prove anything, the kind that makes you realize she was never the problem — the room was just too small. And maybe that’s the part I’m still learning: that I’m allowed to step into a life that fits. That I don’t have to fold myself down to be understood. That I can want more space without feeling like I’m asking for too much. This isn’t about becoming someone new — it’s about finally letting myself be who I was always trying to protect. And that’s what I’m learning now: I’m allowed to grow past the edges of who I used to be. I don’t have to fold myself down to be understood. I can want a life that fits without apologizing for it. This isn’t about becoming someone new — it’s about finally letting myself be someone true. And the more I let myself grow, the more I realize how much I used to hold back without even noticing. How often I tried to make myself easier to carry, easier to understand, easier to love. But I’m not doing that anymore. I’m learning to take myself as I am — not as a project, not as a problem, but as a person who deserves the space she’s finally claiming. There’s a steadiness in that. A kind of quiet confidence I didn’t know I was allowed to have. And that’s what I’m holding onto now — the understanding that I don’t have to shrink to stay familiar. I can grow without losing myself. I can take up space without feeling like I’m taking something from someone else. This version of me isn’t a departure; she’s a return. A widening. A settling into the life I’ve been quietly building. For the first time, it feels less like stepping out of who I was and more like finally stepping into who I’ve always been.
Source: No More Margins
This is the money pentacle. Reblog and unexpected money will come to you!
Rethinking Reality: The Unwritten Story of Time
The universe is not a closed book, but rather a narrative in progress—its future pages unwritten, its history ever-expanding. The digits that define time, instead of being predetermined, seem to emerge in concert with our unfolding experience, hinting at a reality that is both participatory and creative.
Introduction
Time: we all experience its steady march, feel its passing in our bodies, and witness its effects as trees stretch skyward, animals age, and objects wear down. Our everyday understanding of time is one of motion—a ceaseless flow from past, to present, into an open future. Yet, what if the very nature of time is not what it seems? Physics offers a perspective that is at odds with our intuition, challenging us to rethink everything we believe about reality.
Albert Einstein’s revolutionary theory of relativity upended this familiar notion, proposing that time is not merely a backdrop to events, but a fourth dimension intricately woven into the fabric of the universe. In his “block universe” concept, the past, present, and future exist together in a four-dimensional space-time continuum, and every moment—from the birth of the cosmos to its distant future—is already etched into reality. In this cosmic tapestry, the initial conditions of the universe determine all that follows, leaving little room for the unfolding uncertainty we sense in our lives [1].
Contrasting Views: Einstein, Quantum Mechanics, and the Nature of Time
Most physicists today accept Einstein's pre-determined view of reality, in which all events—past, present, and future—are fixed within the space-time continuum. However, some physicists who explore the concept of time more deeply find themselves troubled by the implications of this theory, particularly when the quantum mechanical perspective is considered. At the quantum scale, particles act in a probabilistic manner, existing in multiple states at once until measured; it is only through measurement that a particle assumes a single, definite state.
While each measurement of a particle is random and unpredictable, the overall results tend to conform to predictable statistical patterns. The behaviour of quantum particles is described by the evolution of their wave function over time. Quantum wave functions require a fixed spacetime, whereas relativity treats spacetime as dynamic and observer-dependent. This fundamental difference complicates efforts to develop a theory of quantum gravity capable of quantizing spacetime—a major challenge in modern physics [2].
Relativity, in contrast, insists that time and space be treated equally, making it necessary to introduce time as an operator and place it on the same level as position coordinates. In quantum mechanics, each particle is part of a system with many particles, and time and space coordinates are not treated equally. In such systems, there are as many position variables as there are particles, but only a single time variable, which represents a flaw in the theory. To overcome this, scientists have developed the many-time formalism, where a system of N particles is described by N distinct time and space variables, ensuring equal treatment of space and time [3].
If physicists are to solve the mystery of time, they must weigh not only Einstein’s space-time continuum, but the fact that the universe if fundamentally quantum, governed by probability and uncertainty. Quantum theory treats time in a very different way than Einstein’s theory. Time in quantum mechanics is rigid, not intertwined with the dimensions of space as it is in relativity.
Gisin’s Intuitionist Approach and Indeterminacy
Swiss physicist Nicolas Gisin has published papers aiming to clarify the uncertainty surrounding time in physics. Gisin argues that time—both generally and as we experience it in the present—can be expressed in intuitionist mathematics, a century-old framework that rejects numbers with infinitely many digits.
Using intuitionist mathematics to describe the evolution of physical systems reveals that time progresses only in one direction, resulting in the creation of new information. This stands in stark contrast to the deterministic approach implied by Einstein’s equations and the unpredictability inherent in quantum mechanics. If numbers are finite and limited in precision, then nature itself is imprecise and inherently unpredictable.
Gisin’s approach can be likened to weather forecasting: precise predictions are impossible because the initial conditions of every atom on Earth cannot be known with infinite accuracy. In intuitionist mathematics, the digits specifying the weather’s state and future evolution are revealed in real time as the future unfolds. Thus, reality is indeterministic and the future remains open, with time not simply unfolding as a sequence of predetermined events. Instead, the digits that define time are continuously created as time passes—a process of creative unfolding.
Gisin’s ideas attempt to establish a common indeterministic language for both classical and quantum physics. Quantum mechanics establishes that information can be shuffled or moved around, but never destroyed. However, if digits defining the state of the universe grow with time as Gisin proposes, then new information is also being created. Thus, according to Gisin information is not preserved in the universe since new information is being created by the mere process of measurement.
The Evolving Nature of Time
As we survey the landscape of contemporary physics, it becomes apparent that our classical conception of time is far from settled. Instead, it stands at the crossroads of discovery—a concept perpetually reshaped by new theories and deeper reflection. Einstein’s vision of a pre-determined reality, where all moments are frozen within the space-time continuum, offers comfort in its order and predictability. Yet, this view is challenged by the quantum world, where uncertainty reigns, and events transpire in a haze of probability until measurement brings them into sharp relief.
The friction between the determinism of relativity and the indeterminacy of quantum mechanics compels us to look beyond conventional frameworks. Quantum mechanics treats time as an inflexible backdrop, severed from the intricacies of space, whereas relativity insists on weaving time and space together, equal and dynamic. Gisin’s intuitionist approach further invites us to reflect on the very bedrock of reality—questioning whether information is static or endlessly generated as the universe unfolds.
This ongoing dialogue between classical physics and emerging quantum perspectives not only exposes the limitations of our current understanding but also sparks a profound sense of curiosity. If, as Gisin suggests, information is continuously created, then the universe is not a closed book, but rather a narrative in progress—its future pages unwritten, its history ever-expanding. The digits that define time, instead of being predetermined, seem to emerge in concert with our unfolding experience, hinting at a reality that is both participatory and creative.
Source: Rethinking Reality: The Unwritten Story of Time
“I don’t know what my goals are, no. Thanks for asking.”
Top 10 Life Hacks totally Free to improve your life
60 Seconds ice cold shower after your hot shower, turn around put your head under.
Fasting as you can handle it, try a 24 hour fast.
Clean your clutter - Spend 5 minutes same time each day making your workspace or room clean of daily clutter. It will also help clear your mind.
Run from the parking lot into the store.
Astral Travel to your favorite spot at night. Before you go to sleep, close your eyes and imagine with intention and visualize the place you want to visit during your sleep. Perhaps a picnic in the British Countryside, or an exploration through the Giza Pyramid complex. If it doesn't work at first don't be discouraged there are resources on honing on the strategy but it does work - Lucid Dreaming.
Stretch into Yoga, Tai Chi, Hot Yoga, and light Fitness every morning and evening.
Turn off your phone when you want to have peace, it has an off button. Whatever is that urgent, it can wait a few hours.
Disable audio notifications on your phone, completely. That means for calls, SMS, anything - vibrate only.
Develop a strict daily protocol and stick to it.
Pay it forward - buy Karma next time you're shopping, pay for the guy in front of you or behind you. The universe will pay it back.
Super Bonus hacks
Meditate that you are grateful for the abundance that you have.
Learn a new skill online free - Life Hack Protocol is going to offer resources for courses, you can find online.
Free Courses Online
https://online.stanford.edu/free-courses Stanford University Free Courses
https://ocw.mit.edu/collections/introductory-programming MIT Open Course Ware - Programming
Educate yourself
https://www.gutenberg.org Free books
Source: Top 10 Life Hacks totally Free to improve your life
The statement "reality is a hallucination" is a concept from neuroscience, particularly associated with neuroscientist Anil Seth, who describes it as a "controlled hallucination".
This theory suggests that our perception of reality is not a direct experience of the world but rather a consistent, shared construction by the brain based on its predictions about sensory data. When people agree on these shared predictions, it is what we call reality.
Perception as prediction:
The brain doesn't passively receive information; it actively generates our experience by making constant predictions about the causes of sensory input.
Controlled vs. uncontrolled:
A "controlled hallucination" is a perception that is constrained and guided by sensory information from the world, which is why we generally agree on what we perceive and it is useful and functional.
An "uncontrolled hallucination," like those experienced during psychosis, is when these predictions are not properly constrained by the external world.
Shared experience:
We call our collective perceptions "reality" because we agree on them. If everyone were colorblind, for example, color would not exist as a perceptual reality, though the physical property of light frequency would still exist.
Active construction:
This process means we are not simply reading the world as it is. Instead, our brain is doing the hard work of "explaining away" sensory signals to form a consistent and coherent model of what is happening, both internally and externally.
HOW TO HEAL YOUR TRAUMA
You may think the darkness inside you
is trying to destroy you.
It is not.
It is trying to reunite with you.
The frightening places inside you
are not enemies.
They are abandoned children.
Parts of you that were left alone
for too long.
They do not need analysis.
They need contact.
They need love.
They need you to stop running from them.
Turn toward the darkness.
YOU are the treasure you will find
- Jeff Foster
me, starting a new game: i’m gonna be evil this time
me, 5 minutes into said game: Being Mean Is Not Nice
"One might think that we're talking about ego as enemy, about ego as original sin. But this is a very different approach, a much softer approach. Rather than original sin, there's original soft spot. The messy stuff that we see in ourselves and that we perceive in the world as violence and cruelty and fear is not the result of some basic badness but of the fact that we have such a tender, vulnerable, warm heart of bodhichitta, which we instinctively protect so that nothing will touch it. This"
- Pema Chödrön
Megyn Kelly has no coping skills. No morals.
She is unserious in the face of child rape.
She needs a paycheck and paternalism is her employer.
Megyn Kelly left FOX over allegations of sexual harassment.
Seems she has boundaries for herself, but not vulnerable 15 year old girls trafficked by billionaires.
Fascism sells a synthetic nostalgia.
As good a time as any to remind folks of the 14 properties of "ur-fascism" (described by Umberto Eco, who grew up in Italy under Mussolini, in his 1995 essay Ur-Fascism). Not all need be present for single regime to be fascist, but a Venn diagram of all fascist regimes will cover them all.
CULT OF TRADITION. The old ways are best. The New is not worthwhile.
REJECT MODERNISM The development of Western philosophy post-Enlightenment is seen as a descent into depravity. See also : Reject post-modernism, which is seen as an even greater descent into irrationality.
ACTION FOR ACTION'S SAKE. Action is to be taken without reflection or introspection - that's for weaklings and degenerates. Often seen in a derision of "intellectual elites".
DISAGREEMENT IS TREASON. Analytical criticism cannot be allowed. A pantomime of discourse may be allowed, but only within the accepted framework and only if reaching the foregone conclusion.
FEAR OF DIFFERENCE. Outsiders are your enemy. Those who are different are evil and want to corrupt you and destroy all you hold dear.
APPEAL TO A FRUSTRATED MIDDLE CLASS Capitalising on genuine frustrations by pointing them toward convenient scapegoats. Real concerns used a recruiting tools.
OBSESSION WITH A PLOT. There is a conspiracy run by THEM. You are besieged by THEM. THEY are behind all your ills. THEY are working in the shadows to enslave and destroy you.
THE ENEMY IS BOTH STRONG AND WEAK. When rhetorically convenient, THEY are all-powerful. When rhetorically convenient, THEY are feeble, stupid, weak. The rhetorical focus shifts regardless of self-contradiction, because all that matters is positioning the enemy where the speaker's goal requires them to be at any given moment.
PACIFISM IS THE ENEMY. LIFE IS ETERNAL WAR. There must always be an enemy to fight. When that enemy is defeated, another must be found. When they cannot be found, they must be created, even from within. There is always the promise of a Final Solution bringing Ultimate Triumph, but it can never be achieved.
CONTEMPT FOR THE WEAK. Elitism disguised as populism. Everyone of US is superior to THEM, cockroaches and drains on society that they are. But people are sheep who require strong leaders, who are by their nature superior to others.
EVERYONE IS TAUGHT TO BE THE HERO. A CULT OF DEATH. Where in myth the hero is exceptional, in fascism everyone must be the hero. They crave heroic death, the reward for heroic life. In seeking it, they send others to die. (See also: Militarism).
MACHISMO. Disdain for women and femininity. Intolerance of non-standard sexuality and gender expression.
SELECTIVE POPULISM. The People are viewed as a monolith with a single will, as interpreted (in reality, determined) by the leaders. Democratic institutions are viewed as illegitimate because they run counter to the narrative of the existence of a single Voice Of The People.
NEWSPEAK. Vocabulary cannot expand. If anything, it must shrink. Variation and nuance in dialogue means variation and nuance in thought. This cannot be allowed. Therefore categories must be binary. Definitions are simple and limited. If it cannot be boiled down into snappy catchphrase it does not exist.
Carl Sagan's Pale Blue Dot.
Umberto Eco defined fascism as having 14 common characteristics, which he termed "Ur-Fascism". Key features include a cult of tradition, the rejection of modernism, a cult of action for action's sake, and the idea that disagreement is treason. Other aspects involve a fear of difference, an appeal to a frustrated middle class, and an obsession with conspiracies.
Key characteristics of Ur-Fascism according to Eco:
Cult of tradition: An adherence to an idealized, but often imagined, glorious past, rejecting the modern world.
Rejection of modernism: A suspicion of rationalism and Enlightenment ideals, often viewing them as the source of moral decline.
Cult of action for action's sake: A belief that action is more valuable than reflection, which leads to anti-intellectualism and a distrust of critical thinking.
Disagreement is treason: Dissent and critical thinking are seen as a threat to unity and must be suppressed.
Fear of difference: An appeal to and exacerbation of people's fear of outsiders, often manifesting as racism or xenophobia.
Appeal to a frustrated middle class: A movement that draws support from a middle class that feels economically threatened by social change.
Obsession with a plot: Fascism is fueled by the belief that there is a vast, often hidden, enemy or conspiracy against the nation or a particular group.
The people are an entity: The leader presents themselves as the interpreter of a monolithic "will of the people," which is a theatrical fiction, and the citizens are called to act as a unified entity rather than as individuals.
Life is a constant struggle: A worldview that sees life as a constant battle where the weak are despised and pacifism is considered a betrayal.
Contempt for the weak: A disdain for those considered weak or inferior, often combined with the idealization of an heroic and heroic norm.
Youth cult: An obsession with the young and with a cult of masculinity.
Glorification of violence: Violence is presented as a normal and even desirable way to achieve national goals.
Simplistic worldview: A tendency to reduce complex issues to simple binaries and to use a form of simplified language or "Newspeak" to control thought.
Populist elitism: A paradoxical belief that the leader and the party elite are superior to the masses, while simultaneously claiming to represent the will of the people.
Thank you, for helping me understand that this problem has already been solved for me.