CRISPY

Karma: 43

CRISPY 15 Jul 2026 2:44 UTC
3 points
0
in reply to: lilkim2025’s comment on: Surprising facts about the slave trade
This was ultimately the case, but it’s deeply speculative as to whether that was because of abolition, or in spite of it.
It was the development of industrial technology that drove slavery to its height. The cotton gin, envisioned as a means to reduce reliance on slave labor, actually caused a massive increase in the need for slave labor. The enslaved population went from 700K in 1790 to 4+ million in 1860.
While slavery existed, there was no need to pursue labor saving technology. In fact, selective breeding of cotton strains was a prime focus of the industry so that cultivation could be extended to less optimal environments to be harvested by even more slaves. Slavery was on the increase prior to the war of emancipation and there was no incentive to look for alternatives.
Had the breakaway states achieved victory, it’s questionable if the nationwide hunt for industrial efficiency would have occurred. Best case it would have been delayed by decades. The USA would certainly not have been in a position to become involved in WWI and without that no (or greatly reduced) involvement in WWII and everything that followed.

CRISPY 6 Jul 2026 18:38 UTC
1 point
0
on: The LLM shoggoth meme is weirder than you think
I enjoyed this. It is well considered. Although Lovecraft tells stories that are hostile to AI, so I find using his stories as examples to be kind of funny.
The shoggoth metaphor skips the central thesis of most all Lovecraft works outside of the Dream Cycle. No one benefits from reaching too far (or deep, depending on your perspective) into the unknown. Even godlike extraterrestrial civilizations of immense age and achievement are vulnerable to hubris.
The shoggoth are the product of the Elder Things messing about with technology they didn’t understand. They believed the shoggoth, as technology they had created, could be controlled. It worked for a while, but eventually damned their civilization as they continued empowering the technology to solve problems created by the technology. In the AI context, the shoggoth are the AI, humans are the Elder Things.
In the Lovecraftian world, the only way to protect humanity from technological doom is the elimination of all who pursue dangerous technologies and the destruction of the tools that enable the technology. If it can’t be destroyed, the technology must be hidden away, occulted. Those who occult the technology are the closest Lovecraft comes to good guys.
Long before contemporary readers attempted to shoehorn concepts of social commentary into stories that weren’t The Street, Lovecraft had a simple message. Do not meddle in things you do not understand. If you understand, then you would know not to meddle. The best, and exceedingly unlikely, case is a greatly extended life spent snorting mummy salts or slurping bovine smoothies in dank cellars in constant terror from it all ending. Maybe having your brain encapsulated in a metal cylinder and living a VR existence that can never end, no matter how horrific it gets as you approach the inevitable eternity of drifting through the void of space or buried in a mineshaft.
Invoking Lovecraft is a call to arms against technology and those who pursue it.

CRISPY 15 May 2026 13:55 UTC
1 point
0
on: Irretrievability; or, Murphy’s Curse of Oneshotness upon ASI
I’m afraid to admit that I am one of the people who do not understand the point being made other than arguing against boundary experimentation.

CRISPY 8 May 2026 22:42 UTC
1 point
0
on: How Go Players Disempower Themselves to AI
Skipping to the destination at the expense of the journey is a common problem. People want a degree to make money, many care little for the education. People want to win the game, not learn to play it. Many people want the big house and flash cars, but don’t want to put in the work.
Go and chess are the sophisticated examples, but spend enough time in airports and you’ll see people using AI and anagram generators to play NYT word games. Sudoku solvers and crossword engines fuel commuter trains. Geocaching has evolved into a puzzle game where participants struggle to open the box at the location. Getting to the location without learning anything about navigation doesn’t matter, as long as they get there.
Disempowerment via technology is symptomatic of larger issues. Concepts of disposable iterative design are pervasive and caustic. They didn’t start with technology, but technology has certainly accelerated things. I don’t know that a good solution exists. The best case is a world ruled by benevolent AI. I do not anticipate a best case scenario. I suspect everything will fall apart and nobody will be able to fix it. They’ll be playing Go with yunzi made of bones made from last week‘s eaten family member.

CRISPY 3 Apr 2026 2:43 UTC
1 point
0
on: Some things I noticed while LARPing as a grantmaker
“Money is not a monolith.” is one of the best truisms I’ve seen in a while. I’m going to reuse that. Thanks!

CRISPY 1 Feb 2026 1:51 UTC
6 points
0
on: Canada Lost Its Measles Elimination Status Because We Don’t Have Enough Nurses Who Speak Low German
As extremist religious sects, Mennonites and other Anabaptists have proven particularly susceptible to the Evangelical extremism currently blazing through Christianism in North America.

It’s true to say that Mennonites love their children and don’t want them to die of measles, but the reality is more complicated. The Pre-tribulation Rapture theology associated with vaccine hesitancy has become increasingly common among Anabaptists. So much so that Anabaptist Conference and leaders in the US and Canada have issued multiple statements denying the validity of the theology, but also saying they do not prohibit it.

The theology puts great value on bodily purity, leading adherents to believe not vaccinating their children is an expression of love for them. Dying before Parousia is sad, but it’s better in the long run (eternity) to be pure. There are varying degrees of belief. The more grounded end of the spectrum believes that the End Times are inevitable, but do not make day to day life decisions based on the imminent arrival of The End. The other end of the spectrum believes the End Times are coming sometime between lunch and dinner and their day to day lives are governed by that belief. In the balance of risk, they reckon the chances of getting measles are lower than Jesus’s return and they will be rewarded for their purity in the Judgment without all that science in their bodies. Imminent Parousia remains a fringe belief, but one that has seen significant growth over the last decade in nearly every sect of Evangelical and Fundamentalist Christianism and particularly among fringe groups.

There’s no doubt that medical care and participation in preventative medicine are improved when the caregivers are proficient in the language of the patient. But the effect of occultism on the return of measles cannot be overstated. Language carries logic and reason, both of which are tertiary concerns for True Believers. Extreme religious beliefs topped off with extra Biblical occultism* is a public health threat.

*Occult driven disease isn’t limited to Christianism. Polio is a recurring problem among Hasidic Jews. It’s cholera and hepatitis C for Wahhabis, Syphilis was historically a problem in some paths of Buddhism. Parasitic infection and bacterial infections from geophagia remain a problem in certain paths of Buddhism.

CRISPY 7 Nov 2025 23:38 UTC
1 point
−1
in reply to: PhilGoetz’s comment on: LLM-generated text is not testimony
You are correct insofar as art goes, but that’s why the distinction of workmanship is important. The justification for art is its own thing, however the justification for workmanship is needs driven.

The method of meeting the need is the core of the LLM writing discussion.

CRISPY 3 Nov 2025 21:17 UTC
1 point
0
on: LLM-generated text is not testimony
You might be interested in “The Nature and Art of Workmanship” by David Pye.

It deals with the differences between work of the hand and work of the machine, and the philosophical differences between them. He calls it the workmanship of risk versus the workmanship of certainty.

The concept applies very well to LLM writing.

CRISPY 15 Oct 2025 0:53 UTC
4 points
1
on: If Anyone Builds It Everyone Dies, a semi-outsider review
The valuelessness of a treaty seems to be based on a binary interpretation of success. Treaties banning chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons development may not have been absolutely successful; they have been violated. But I don’t think many people would argue those restrictions haven’t been beneficial.

I’m not clear why a ban on developing AGI would not have similar value.

CRISPY 13 Oct 2025 1:21 UTC
4 points
0
in reply to: Random Developer’s comment on: How long do AI companies have to achieve significant capability gains before funding collapses?
I like the idea of cocktail party investment advice as an economic bellwether. That’s a good observation.

CRISPY 12 Oct 2025 14:14 UTC
5 points
2
on: How long do AI companies have to achieve significant capability gains before funding collapses?
There’s no hard delimiter on financially induced sector collapse, and it’s often not directly attributable to the sector that collapses. The dot com crash was tied to federal reserve interest rate increases that resulted in a sell off as investors moved towards less speculative investments.

AI is in a fairly safe position right now through sheer variety of vested interests. Government, construction, infrastructure, computing hardware, software, and early corporate adopters of AI are all doing everything they can to keep the ball rolling. They’ve crossed a line where sunk costs have an outsized role in future decisions. There’s also the wildcard of AI being deemed a strategic defense asset.

The present state of spending will continue until there’s some catastrophic event that scares people off or public pressure forces a reduction in scale.

My money is on public pressure leading to change. Data centers are being publicly subsidized and the general public is beginning to push back. One or two public service commissions refusing to comply with energy and water subsidies will lead to wide scale changes that will put the brakes on. Things will move out of startup mode and into the realm of actual business.

CRISPY 9 Oct 2025 2:18 UTC
7 points
0
in reply to: Gabriel Alfour’s comment on: The Eldritch in the 21st century
You were right. I was interested and genuinely enjoyed the article. I hope there is a Part III. I am interested to know about your personal approach.

CRISPY 6 Oct 2025 23:13 UTC
1 point
0
on: Omelas Is Perfectly Misread
Omelas can also be seen as plausibility through imperfection. People have trouble accepting perfection. Imperfection adds a layer of realism that anchors people to a story. Without imperfection, there’s nothing to talk about.

Reza Aslan cleverly applies the concept to deities, but it works with pretty much everything. Looking gift horses in the mouth is human nature. There’s a direct relationship between an ideal, and the level of effort put into the inquisition the ideal is subjected to in search of the imperfection. There’s also an expectation that the closer something is to utopia, the worse the imperfection will be.
Mark Twain said “What do they say about a man with no vices?” Churchill said he didn’t trust a man without any vices. Both are saying the same thing. The same thing as Le Guin. Omelas isn’t interesting until suffering is introduced. Omelas is a fantasy that’s wholly unremarkable without the imperfection of the girl’s plight. The imperfection makes it relatable.

The error in the analysis seems to be the assumption that the value of the story is in the suffering. I don’t think that has to be the case. Omelas is a valid critique of cynicism. Our innate need to find fault simply to give ourselves something to complain about. Our refusal to accept something unless it’s damaged.

CRISPY 1 Oct 2025 1:59 UTC
7 points
0
on: The Eldritch in the 21st century
The eldritch horror analogy is interesting. I like it overall. If we extend the analysis to include not just the gods, but the people involved, I believe it adds another dimension to the discussion.
In eldritch horror there are rarely any good guys. Arguably there are none. There are typically two groups of actors, and the rest of humanity is an ignorant mass concerned with mundane matters. Innocent of the knowledge of the supermundane.

The two groups of actors are the priests, and the individuals who seek to thwart the priests using some other eldritch power. The priests are universally bad. They worship their god at the expense of everything, and everyone, else. The oppositional force, let’s call them adepts, seek to keep the priests in check. They do not worship the eldritch gods, but they do use esoteric knowledge of other eldritch gods in furtherance of their mission. There is a semblance of altruism in their opposition to the priests, but it’s more accurate to view their behavior as the cost of their education in their arts. A moral obligation that comes with their pursuit of knowledge for their own ends.

The priests and the adepts both use their beliefs as mechanisms to bypass moral and ethical considerations. They have a higher calling or self imposed obligation they use to justify their actions. The only people left untouched by the eldritch horrors are the people who don’t get involved. The central lesson in the genre is that no good comes from getting involved.

Since this essay is about getting involved, I think we must ask what the goal is, and where the solution lies. Are we to play the role of the priest or the adept? Are we accelerating the rise of eldritch horror, or are we shaping the horror to benefit ourselves while minimizing the impact to non-participants?

Once a role is chosen, the location of the solution must be determined, and here, I believe, is the crux of all this. Is the eldritch horror actually the problem, or is the problem the people involved? By targeting the god we’re really no different than the priests who use the god to justify immortality. By targeting the god we’re just continuing an age old game of making war on ideas while the priests are out conjuring new gods. By targeting the priests we’re crossing a line that, historically, hasn’t resulted in much good, and has created suffering so profound we define our temporal position by it.

So what is the point? We’re either wasting our time in an eternal philosophical conflict or we’re engaging in an eternal physical conflict and the moral quagmire that entails. Does reason truly demand we get involved, or are we citing reason as an excuse to pursue personal gain?

Within the genre of eldritch horror, reason would seem to dictate no action. There is limited room for the role of the scribe who records the deeds of the priests and adepts. That allows for intellectual satisfaction, but the neutrality required is notoriously difficult to maintain. If the compulsion to act cannot be overcome, perhaps a gatherer and recorder of information is a viable option.

CRISPY 27 Sep 2025 21:58 UTC
1 point
0
on: Global Call for AI Red Lines—Signed by Nobel Laureates, Former Heads of State, and 200+ Prominent Figures
I’m pleased this got some traction. One of my largest concerns with AI policy development is that state level decision makers will not recognize the threat until catastrophic damage has been done.

Identifying the need for chemical, biological, and nuclear warfare treaties was fairly universal, as there were real examples of their risks available for all to see. Without that tangible evidence, there’s a risk of incremental disaster like we’re seeing with climate change policies.

A policy accelerationist is probably my biggest concern. A group that creates a problem in order to highlight the need to protect against even larger disasters. Like the Gruinard Island soil incidents.

Any movement towards redlines and international safeguards is a good thing.

CRISPY 27 Sep 2025 21:19 UTC
2 points
0
on: Christian homeschoolers in the year 3000
A central assumption here is that AI will continue to function in a unfettered way. Where each user is able to construct a bespoke digital world for themselves based on all the variation access to unlimited information can provide.
I don’t think that idea reflects reality. Historically, when it is possible to limit information, authorities will do so in whatever ways forward their agenda, or retards the agenda of an opponent or enemy.

Instead of a bespoke microcosm based on personal values, authorities will simply prevent access to information that is not compliant with the agenda. Trends towards monopolistic capitalism mixed and religious bias will result in a monolithic AI that doesn’t just ignore things (like evolution) but attacks the ideas and people who support them.

We’re already seeing a measurable reduction in original online content and ideas. That’s unlikely to change. The whole thing is speeding towards a single point that authoritarian types have been gagging for as long as literacy has existed. Instead of insular enclaves, I see an entire insular society living in a constant crisis of verisimilitude and outright propaganda where error checking is entirely self referential and wholly circular.

CRISPY 22 Aug 2025 13:57 UTC
−1 points
−10
on: A Conservative Vision For AI Alignment
Conservatism isn’t about keeping things as they are. It’s about regression into a gilted fictional past. Intentionally introducing bias into a system in order to transit to a nonexistent temporal location as a reactionary response seems like a strange thing to do in general. It seems like an exceedingly strange thing to do to a conglomeration of logical procedures.

The entire notion is inherently regressive and reactionary. It’s coping with fear of an unknown future by appealing to an idealized past. Intentionally baking fear into the system eliminates the goal of an inherently progressive system that is, by definition and design, intended to be in a continuous state of incremental improvement.
Systematic Utopianism predicated on fictions fabricated in correlation fallacy does not seem like a pursuit of reason; therefore hostile to AGI.

CRISPY 22 Aug 2025 11:34 UTC
1 point
0
on: Why Latter-day Saints Have Strong Communities
Another commonality between the Hasidim and LDS is disassociation from society at large. It’s more than localized consolidation of theologically aligned individuals. Both set themselves apart from society, essentially othering the majority of society. Whether they deem others to be merely goyim (Hasidim) or Gentiles (LDS), or the more extreme views tamei or unclean, a major emphasis is placed on downgrading those outside their faith.

That’s not to say individuals from either religion are viewing outsiders as lesser, necessarily, but from a group level the othering of outsiders is a key component in community building and cohesion. By establishing a state of being which outsiders cannot attain, the scale and scope of the community is severely limited. Community members are forced to look within the community to satisfy innate needs. Companionship, entertainment, education, reproduction, et al can only be obtained within the community.

On a small scale, these practices are very effective from a community perspective and they have limited negative impact outside the community. But at scale, things get complicated, and ugly. It’s not a big step from viewing people as unclean to becoming a cleaner. Highly insular communities are not, sociologically, far off from ethnic supremacy ideologies. The red headed stepchild of tradition is blood purity.

CRISPY 19 Aug 2025 13:56 UTC
1 point
0
in reply to: AnthonyC’s comment on: Should you make stone tools?
People tend to underestimate the scale of inter-cultural prehistoric networks. Humans are exceptionally good at sourcing materials.

I really like the mental picture of everyone waiting on Bob to return from the wilds with the special stones for the hunting points (or whatever).

CRISPY 19 Aug 2025 13:27 UTC
5 points
0
on: Church Planting: When Venture Capital Finds Jesus
You should look into a guy called Abraham Vereide. He is almost single handedly responsible for the development of Evangelical Christianism.

He’s the guy who rebranded Fundamentalism as Evangelicalism (via his proxy Billy Graham). He’s also the guy who introduced the multilevel marketing of planting as a business model for Jesus. Soteriological Amway. That’s why the podcasts you’re listening to are so filled with “growth words”. It’s a dodge around talking openly about money.

He’s a really interesting guy. He came to D.C. with FDR, and he stayed in the Oval Office until his death in 1969. The adoption of the National Motto and putting it on the money was his doing. He represented Truman during the drafting of the UN Charter at Dumbarton Oaks and pushed David Ben-Gurion to suggest Israel as the name for the new country (it was going to be Judah. The name Israel was a huge surprise for everyone, even the proto-Israelis). He also founded the National Prayer Breakfast that made religion the gatekeeper of American politics.

It’s near impossible to overstate the scale of Vereide’s influence on the United States. Regardless of how one feels about him, he can’t be overlooked in any thorough examination of Evangelical Christianism.