• 1 Post
  • 18 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
cake
Cake day: June 10th, 2023

help-circle



  • I use Typewise, with its default hexagonal layout that’s supposedly based on the frequency of letters in English. I’ve gotten alright with it - ~60 WPM on Monkeytype, which is enough that it doesn’t feel clunky to use it. And it’s quite fun to practice, too!

    While I’m pretty sure it’s quite possible to write faster with more predictive keyboards, I really appreciate the precision this one allows. Especially since I’m bilingual, which leads to autocorrect and swype getting quite confused sometimes.

    I’m still in the market for a better keyboard app. Another interesting one I’ve tried was MessagEase. It looks really cool and arcane to use, but I found it to be slower in spite of me putting more effort into mastering it.












  • What I was actually saying is that the same reasons for belief apply whether it’s 2000 BCE or 4000 CE. Humans remain human, and religion fills an inherent need.

    There’s other religions than Christianity - large ones - that do not consider the birth of Christ as particularly meaningful. The fact that we’re using it as a point of reference is meaningful - the Christian religion has been very influential - but it is hardly some grand irony you seem to imply.


  • For the same reasons they always have.

    The year has little to do with it. The only things we’ve really undeniably progressed in over the past century are scientific knowledge and the level of technology. Existential philosophy hasn’t exactly made breakthroughs recently, to my knowledge.

    Each person still needs to find their own answer to the fundamental questions of “why am I here” and “wtf is death and how do I deal with it”.

    Our mechanical, scientific understanding of reality provides fairly depressing answers to these questions. Religion? Sunshine and roses.

    Also, on a more practical factor: childhood indoctrination and cultural inertia. Most people are raised in religion and they find it “good enough”, so religion continues.


  • In the same way that computers are basically advanced abaci.

    Don’t confuse a simplification made to demonstrate the basic functioning to a layman with how things actually work.

    LLM’s are neural networks, which are based on a model of brain function. There’s little reason to believe that we cannot eventually reach similar levels of effectiveness as human brains.

    Hell - reaching the levels of pigeon brains would already be absurdly useful.


  • Ehhh. I get that exploitative techbros and cryptobros have confused the issue by latching onto the AI bubble.

    But at the same time generalized artificial intelligence is very likely possible and will be an absolute game-changer if and when it happens. It’s easily of similar value to fusion technology.

    And it is already bringing truly impressive results into reality - protein folding and diagnostic medicine come to mind.