AKA Rowan Jupiter. Astrophysics student, PauseAI UK volunteer, BlueDot Career Transition Grantee, she/her, in my 20s.
There’s no heaven? Alright humanity, let’s build our own.
✦ https://blueprintingheaven.substack.com/
✦ https://x.com/LaibaRehmanRJ
✦ https://www.linkedin.com/in/rehmanlaiba/
✦ https://rehmanlaiba.github.io/
The Quran was my source of truth (or so I told myself) and the Quran said Allah was good, so. Also, I’d always been told how he gifted me every neuron within my eye, that every beautiful landscape was by him, and that he’d designed physics, all so mercifully and graciously for us to experience. That plus all the religious stories I’d been raised on I guess.
> nothing stop you to still hope for the best as much as you did before.
You’ve lost me from here onwards, sorry.
Thanks, this was super useful! I think drama drains/upsets/frustrates me a lot more than the average person, so even more reason not to go for it.
Do you still think more people should try polyamory, but that they shouldn’t try to keep being polyamorous so hard?
Unfortunately mostly dodging the question, or just saying they don’t have a solution for that but still don’t want death to be cured because billionaires would control the world/it would make inequality worse etc. (They haven’t engaged much with rationality or anything like that, they’re just friends on my Astrophysics course.)
A message I sent on a group chat of friends that I’m happy with:
”I have a fun question for the pro-death people here
If you think death gives life meaning (or are otherwise pro-death), what do you propose as a solution for the “problem” of aging being cured?
I think it is unreasonable to believe that in the next 1000 years people won’t find ways to at least significantly reduce the effects of aging, so we’ll likely have people aged 300 looking like 30 year olds walking around
Do you think this is a problem and if yes then what’s your solution?
(If you don’t think this is a problem then maybe you think immortality is bad but we can live up to a certain age and that’s fine. If that’s your view then a) what age? b) what do you propose should happen to people once they reach that age?)
Remember that just because you think it’s okay for people to be age X but not age X+50 doesn’t mean that science will stop at age X, so you need a solution for what to do when people cross your line of age X”
Thank you, will check it out! It’s nice that I’m already on GrapheneOS :]
Prepare for The Hackening.
Curious as to whether you have any mundane/practical advice?
I read this yesterday but it only clicked this morning who this bright-eyed bushy-tailed new member probably was haha, if my suspicions are correct I’m very flattered. :)
Much more often I find myself in situations where I’m surrounded by young kids or it’s a really happy occasion and I don’t have it in me to ruin these children’s lives or I don’t want to crash the party, which definitely isn’t good to do anyway; no one will keep AI safety advocates around if they’re always ruining the good times. I’m less sure about whether you should be telling kids about this, maybe watered down versions or on a case-by-case basis. My little brother (14) has read IABIED and is convinced it’s a serious problem but he doesn’t seem to have emotionally reacted to it (probably because he’s religious) which is pretty ideal I think, because he can defend the point if it ever comes up in conversation but I’m not worried about his mental health.
Damn, just looked through the reviewers I screenshotted and yeah, all but one have only posted one review. However, “Only customers who have spent at least $50 on Amazon in the last 12 months can submit ratings and reviews.” (Should have put that in the original, my bad.) That makes it seem like it would only be profitable if you intend to reuse the accounts for future reviews? Unless the value of a few 5-star ratings is much higher than I realise.
Wondering how robust Amazon’s process of labelling a review with “Verified Purchase” is. Are we sure these are all users using AI to write their reviews and not bots?
Amazon say, “We check if the reviewer bought or used (e.g., streamed) the item on Amazon and paid a price available to most Amazon shoppers. If we confirm both, we label the review with Verified Purchase… Our automated and human checks stop millions of suspicious reviews.”
I wonder how it varies between people — for me, abstaining from sweets leads to not really wanting them. My desire for sweets after a month of no sweets is lower than it is after a few days of no sweets. (But lower than it is a day after sweets… I think?)
Obviously it isn’t perfect because I always return at some point haha (although I’ve never made a total effort to completely cut sweets out of my life)
I became an atheist in September of 2025. I really sympathise with you here.
I like being alive, it’s fun! Things have meaning because we assign them meaning, in my opinion. Fight for good things, and help others be happy. Sorry for the short and simple reply (I’m tired) but I hope it’s better than nothing, and if you want to talk deconversion feel free to message me!
You may find my blog post on my deconversion interesting: https://blueprintingheaven.substack.com/p/deconversion-has-been-a-real-productivity
For me, becoming an atheist translated into a burning fire to live and help humanity live, for us to progress and be happy. I hope reading my post can help you feel this way!
That is true but I think would lead to net-complacency… Let’s hope if we ever do find out that free will is definite and humanity accepts it that people take the view you describe here!
True, I’ll rephrase. If we do not have free will, would it be beneficial for our belief in free will to be destroyed? If you were a divine operator with humanity’s best interests at heart, would you set up the causal chain of events to one day reveal to humans that they do not have free will?
I also sleep and my heart beats, but “I” don’t get to decide those things, whereas free will implies “I” get to make day-to-day decisions.
I don’t think I’m 100% following with the second-to-last sentence. Are you saying it’s detrimental to disregard the debate of whether we have free will?
″...because you make decisions that determine your actions” I don’t know that this would fit with the idea of no free will. Surely you’re not really making any decisions.
“my decisions will be determined by my values”—“what do my values actually imply I should do in this situation” But your values wouldn’t have been decided by you.
I agree with your last sentence. I’m leaning towards, “If we do not have free will, people should not be told about it.” (Assuming the “proof” of no free will eliminates any possibility of constructing selves that do have free will because in that case I would want us to build them and “move into” those bodies.)
Gotcha, thanks for clarifying. It definitely looks darker for me, because I did indeed believe in a benevolent God and a perfect heaven, but I still have hope that if we work hard we can preserve the wonders we have and create/find new ones!