[ExI] questions

[William Flynn Wallace]

I guess this answers the question: Quis ipsos custodes custodiet      bill w

On Wed, Apr 16, 2025 at 2:32 PM Darin Sunley via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

> 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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