[ExI] questions

[Darin Sunley]

At this point, anyone with any stake in US politics who doesn't have 600
deep-reasoning chatgpt instances running, one for each congressmen,
senator, senior elected official and cabinet member of the us government,
with a context window stuffed with every public utterance and obtainable
private communication, running a simulacrum of the the entire US
government, just isn't playing the game seriously.

"They're dinosaurs. And they're going to be sitting on their asses on the
couches in October, watching the Boston Red Sox win the World Series." -
Moneyball

On Wed, Apr 16, 2025 at 12:55 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

> re education:  I taught college and witnesed first hand educators and what
> went on at their get-togethers (hint - educational theories devised with a
> nod to fantasy, magic, and extremely unrealistic expectations, along with
> research papers which could have been done better by 7th graders without a
> knowledge of scientific procedures).  If I had no morals I would have been
> in favor of a successful Trump assassin (fyi - Arabic/hashassin).  But if I
> knew more I might be in favor of his policies towards the Education
> Department.   Science and Education demonstrate the mixture of oil and
> water. It's really a psychology tragedy: so many available subjects and so
> few good studies.
>
> re amazing slate article:  being entirely ignorant of every area mentioned
> in that article I can say:  people don't know what they want - they have to
> be told and sold (no, I am not naive- pretty sure most of you know all of
> this).  You can always find someone to design the program/write the
> article/write the book/etc.   Don't think the Brooklyn bridge can't be
> sold?  A genius can sell it to intelligent people)  In effect it is sold
> billions of times every day.  Studies show that depressed people (probably
> depressed about people) make more rational decisions/predictions.  bill w
>
> On Wed, Apr 16, 2025 at 12:55 PM Darin Sunley via extropy-chat <
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>
>> Keeping it non-political, I'll take a stab at a serious answer to that
>> very important question.
>>
>> There is indeed a very well-developed science of political propaganda at
>> this point. Unfortunately it's almost entirely destructive and
>> destabilizing. They can divide populations, they can sow dissent, they can
>> entrench existing divisions in opinion, they can even make people
>> permanently stupider and more violent. It used to be against the law to
>> employ it domestically in the US, but the relevant law was repealed during
>> the Obama administration.
>> https://scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1203&context=nulr
>> .
>>
>> The results have been manifest for anyone with eyes to see.
>>
>> What they /can't/ do is make people smarter, or make people change sides
>> around the axes of division they define, once they define them.
>>
>> [This is in stark contrast to the alleged science of public education,
>> which for over 50 years now has been well-established as not being able to
>> accomplish much of anything.]
>>
>> If you haven't read Scott Alexander's "Sort by Controversial"
>> https://slatestarcodex.com/2018/10/30/sort-by-controversial/ , I
>> /highly/ recommend it. It may be remembered as prophecy and documentary
>> rather than science fiction.
>>
>> On Wed, Apr 16, 2025 at 11:01 AM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat <
>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>>
>>> On Wed, Apr 16, 2025 at 12:50 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat <
>>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Hint - we need some new topics.  Object:  disinter Spike and Bill w.
>>>>
>>>
>>> At the risk of veering into politics, is there a science to manipulating
>>> the standard reason-eschewing low-information MAGA masses and politicians
>>> into implementing desired social outcomes?
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