incomplete thoughts @mentalisttraceur-incomplete - Tumblr Blog

Just a quick thought about the future of Termux.

Termux or its successor will have to register itself as an app manager (like F-Droid), and it probably needs to ship its own version of `install` which locally builds and signs an APK as an addon for the Termux app.

So Android has been moving for years towards making it impossible for something like Termux to exist -- making it so that apps cannot download/create new executable code.

Basically W^X at the file system level, except that you can't explicitly disable it when it would be useful.

Towards that end, they've been slowly choking out Termux's ability to even install/run. It has to be built against an old Android API version, which for years hasn't been allowed on the app store, and nowadays trying to sideload the APK requires you to go through extra warnings/hurdles.

So I think Termux or its successor

Except that CPUs and serious operating systems provide W^X as a default, while letting programs disable that default for pages of memory. This enables JIT compilation.

I'm not entirely sure how this is supposed to add security in itself, unless they intend to eventually tighten the noose further and disallow code interpreters as well. Most charitable version is that they still let you have things like Python in your app, but require the app to declare a special scary permission -- but if they do that, they should

Devastating:

One of my phones no longer works reliably (spontaneously reboots) as of almost a week ago now.

For reasons that warrant their own vent post, I don't yet have a replacement set up with my personal custom software setup. If I'm using the replacement, I'm limited to normie software that y'all use.

This means if I want to get anything done in a way that's remotely good UX and syncs well with the rest of my shit, I either have to use my one other phone (and then be shackled to a wall after I've run the battery down) or one of my laptops (worse, so much worse -- hours of writing code and prose on phones may give me RSI sure, but laptops require sometimes interrupting what I'm doing if I want to get up, pace, reposition, go somewhere, do something; laptops are only usable in a small subset of possible movements and positions, and with two hands, while phones are basically an accessibility aid far more compatible with boundless task perseveration

Obviously this is some neurodivergent privileged first-world problem bullshit, but still. Devastating.

#mentalisttraceur personal

argumate

it's challenging to dispose of an unwanted population without the cover of war, and Israel is currently engaged in several; I think one possible avenue for its attempts to claim Gaza and the West Bank would be that following the conquest of buffer zones in neighbouring countries like Lebanon and Syria (or Egypt??) they could find opportunities to relocate Palestinians to refugee camps in those areas, which would act as one-way filters taking people out of Israel and not letting them back in.

mentalisttraceur-incomplete

My first thought was that this is extremely plausible.

But there's an interesting parallel -- the Nazis also kept wanting other countries to take Jews/etc for like a decade, but when they actually conquered places, they never really moved existing camp/ghetto populations out, did they?

I think fascist regimes struggle with this once they get past a certain point -- "this" being actually competent long-term self-restraint.

The Nazis (supporters of a German/"Aryan" ethnostate) were basically (self-)selected for people who really felt a desire to go conquer other territories for themselves.

The Zionists (supporters of a Jewish ethnostate) have similarly cultivated a desire to maintain an ethnosupremacist apartheid project.

What I'm getting at is, once you have a critical mass of genuine heartfelt superiority and entitlement over a people, when the moment comes to give them anything, no matter how small, you're not gonna want to. Even if you just stole that thing. I mean, you worked so hard to steal it. It's basically yours now. Rightfully yours, if you think about it. I mean, you had the Strength and the Will to take it and everything.

Historically Israel has been a lot more patient, but it also had to be. They also were a more balanced coalition to start, seeded with the normal or maybe even greater than average kindness and compassion -- the "we just went through this, we shouldn't be doing it to others" resistance/unenthusiasm was more present in the population. Now they've had generations to slowly weed it out, to shape and direct minds from childhood to be more compatible with dehumanizing the people that they're trying to oust/replace.

Prediction Trees over "priors" Prediction Trees in terms of "priors"

Prediction trees gives you a mechanistic explanation. something far more concrete and actionable. With just priors you have nothing but the vague relative strengths of one prior versus another. But priors' strength in your mind isn't constant even in the absence of updates, so how are you modeling that?

Eventually you'll end up reinventing prediction trees, as multiple layers of conditional probabilities: P(A | B ∩ C), P(B | D), P(C | E ∩ F), ....

But even if you have that in your head, nothing about the word "priors" suggests it, and words are how you pass ideas to other minds.

[2025-03-19]

In a very Monkey's Paw way, the Tesla stock situation is more democracy than America has ever managed to pull off. It is more global democracy than the world has ever managed to pull if.

Elon starts wrecking the government and showing signs of dictatorial and fascist aspirations, and *the people. said. **no***.

Now yes, this

The endless Profit über Alles of capitalism will devour so self-defeating that the richest man on Earth can start seizing dictatorial power but the

Because unlike Trump, Elon is actually fettered by the truth. Trump's word-generation is best modeled as having zero friction on truth (whether autism friction or conscience friction). Perfectly unimpeded. Trump will shoot advantageous words first and deal with truth compatibility later (usually by generating more words that serve as a shim between the truth and what he said previously, rather than taking back anything he said before). But Elon, Elon does seem to me like he wants to be (see himself as) honest/sincere; I think Elon tries to path his word-generation within the confines of (what he thinks is) the truth. So that led to a few unresolved tensions in my model (why would Elon do [action] in [situation]? hard to believe he'd outright lie or copingly rationalize this hard in this specific instance).

Psylocibin Predictions

The promising studies about lasting mental changes from just one dose or a few dose will partially bear out.

The actual results will vary by person, how growth-facilitating their life/environment is, and exactly what your issues/traumas are. It will be found that some people/issues gradually regress in the months or years after treatment.

A fully developed system will include the therapist evaluating if the rest of your life will harmfully interact with the neuroplasticity boost you got from the psilocybin - adapting to an unhealthy life can lead to more

First they came for the terrorists, and we spoke out, but you didn't care because fuck those guys.

Then they came for people they accused of being terrorists, and we kept speaking out, but you didn't care because surely they only accuse real bad guys.

Then they came for the illegal immigrants, and you didn't care because they broke laws and also some of them might be terrorist gang cartels.

Then they came for the legal immigrants, and you didn't care because they were saying stuff you didn't like hearing, which is basically terrorism if you think about it.

Then they came for the citizens who earned their citizenship, and you did not care because

It is so absolutely fucking exhausting how much right-wing misinformation media distorts reality over time.

No one can reasonably keep up with all of it unless you make it your full-time job.

And the better you are at thinking, the more reliably their methods insidiously cause you to give ground on the time-scales of years, once the details are no longer fresh in your mind.

That lie or creative misrepresentation they're spreading today? Years from now someone will bring it up in a discussion, and:

You won't say "no, no, what actually happened was [...]", because out of hundreds, because you won't always perfectly remember this one in particular, and their less-truthful version is oft-repeated, simpler, and shorter.

You'll say "yeah, that wasn't great, but [...]", because you are a

Unless you have a lifelong habit or system of records that lets you reliably recall the difference between their version and the truth on the spot,

As a whole, they attack every nuance and detail from all possible sides, relentlessly. Every bit of truth

Couple hints on discriminating "am I being gaslighted, or is this person just very confident that their memory/interpretation/analysis is right?"

What happens when you reveal that this is causing you to no longer trust your perceptions/memory? Someone who's highly driven by compassion will try to adjust somehow.

Many years ago, somewhere in 2004-2007, I wrote in a forum post that the USA PATRIOT Act's vague-ass "material support for terrorism" could be stretched to cover just about anything.

[2025-03-31]

The biggest single thing trauma takes from you is the confidence to just do things. Act. To try stuff instead of thinking, to find out by diving in and experiencing the result instead of predicting the result.

The biggest single thing trauma takes from you is-

Doesn't matter. Take it back.

[2025-04-01]

It is always more adaptive to assume someone's behavior is sound in their context - their life history and what they've been able to see in it - and reverse-engineer that why.

What life experiences or perspective would make their behavior correct?

A lack of consequentialism in legal education leads to courts that are blind to all the ways society can slowly ruin itself.

A few mandatory courses in hacking and usurping the law would be good.

A prospective judge should be as versed in game theory and natural selection models as they are in law.

Make prospective judges figure out how they could make small incremental changes which together add up to a situation where suddenly someone can achieve a goal like "become dictator" or "profit by harming customers".

Make prospective judges play defense where they make court rulings crafted by people trying to sneakily get them to make those changes. Recycle/redirect/rehabilitate people who commit white collar crimes and such by makinf customers the law - where the lessons, exams, and assignments are all about making one or more changes to law which allow

Judges who wish to ensure

I think an essential part of healthy self-love is finding the ability to love the ego-free/depersonalized view of your unvarnished physical self.

To see yourself the way that you would see a complete stranger with the same body and face, and then discover a path to loving that person.

Which is kinda hard because most of us are not our type, and we're lucky if we're particularly attractive from even just one good angle.

It was only after I re-created

impressions I parsed myself I ever caught of myself in the mirror, and even that was vague/impressionistic.

So you can't really do that unless/until

#self love

Make Interruptions Cost Nothing

The single biggest productivity-improving approach I have figured out for myself is systematically making it as quick and easy as possible to stop doing something, save all my work, and then pick it up later.

Sync as many things as possible across all of my devices. This frees you to stop on the current device (f.e., your computer) and to leave the device (i.e., you don't have to delay leaving the hand then resume anywhere at any time (f.e., your phone). This

Unfortunately, you'll never get away from needing to dump your mental state. If you have some significant idea

#productivity

I think one way you should judge a job/company is if it's actually feasible to get to Inbox Zero by the end of your onboarding.

I've had teams where by the time I get into Outlook (it's always Outlook), I have hundreds of emails, including and my first few days are so full of st

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incomplete thoughts