I've attempted to stay out of this YAFWD (yet another free will discussion - I wanted to put useless in there ... maybe YAUFWD, easier to pronounce?). But then I struggled through this winded artifact:
https://3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2026/08/algorithms-before-the-cradle-part-ii.html I couldn't really follow the iterations *from* Jon's concept of openness (my word, I think), even after a few private rounds with Mistral. So I gave up. But reading the Ahmad piece put me smack into my prior *feels* w.r.t. TESCREAL and the SciFi Fanboi fascism we see from the likes of Thiel and Karp (and their K-Hole spelunker buddy Musk). Then I'm hit with Marcus' piece on openness. Yes, I tried to read it. I feel stupid for making the effort ... not only do I feel stupid because I don't understand ... like 98% of the words, but also for wasting my time trying to read it ... knowing full well in advance that I will not understand it. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ But such linguistic prestidigitation only cements my concern that it can be ... no *WILL BE* exploited to justify the violation of consent. It already is, I think. There is no free will, so we may as well do whatever dastardly deeds The Algorithm has in store for us. Did I murder a couple dozen people? Help genocide some brown people? Bah! *I* didn't do that. You only *think* I did it. And if they did not consent to their genocide, it doesn't matter because there's no such thing as consent. Or, if there is such a thing ... whatever object pointed to by that token, it's definitely NOT what you might think it is. Such thoughts make me giggle a bit when I sign the document at the clinic. Do you even know what this document says? What my signature means? Pfft. Our tech and AI overlords have such sights to show you. On 8/19/26 2:06 PM, Santafe wrote:
I guess, at the end, for all these real-world cases where choices are hard both to make and to understand or evaluate, does having a tag named “free will” add something material to our ability to settle where we are in relation to it?
-- 8647 ⊥ ɐןןǝdoɹ ǝ uǝןƃ ὅτε oi μὲν ἄλλοι κύνες τοὺς ἐχϑροὺς δάκνουσιν, ἐγὰ δὲ τοὺς φίλους, ἵνα σώσω.
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