u/honoredb

On October 7th, 1903, Charles Manly tested out the airplane engine he'd invented, known today as the Manly-Balzer engine. In accordance with nominative determinism, he himself climbed into the prototype plane while it was nestled in a catapult, sitting on a houseboat in the middle of the Potomac River. The plane had no steering or landing mechanism, but Manly assumed that even if it successfully flew, by default it would fly in a straight line, staying aligned with the river, so that he'd crash-land in the water and probably survive using his life jacket. This was incorrect. The smaller scale models had flown straight, but at human scale any plane will by default drift off course. Luckily for him, the plane was damaged by the catapult launch and fell into the water immediately.

I believe this to be an early example of performance art illustrating the dangers of neglecting AI safety.

Woke up last Saturday with an odd idea. In universes like X-Men, what if we took the term "mutant" literally and assumed that novel superpowers come from random genetic mutation, and the selection effect has to do with Novikov-consistency time travel? I don't know if I've entirely succeeded in making it make sense, but I've given it a try.

Hello, friends!

I spent most of my childhood (pre-k through 10th grade) in various Quaker schools in Pennsylvania. My parents didn't identify as Quakers (heck, many of my teachers didn't) but I was immersed in the culture. Naturally, I was brainwashed!!! and indoctrinated!!! into becoming a nice, kind, independent-minded adult who doesn't spend a lot of money on clothes. All well and good.

I've been wondering, though, about the relationship between all that good stuff and the parts of my personality I don't particularly like. I don't interrupt people, even in social settings where the norm is very clearly that you're supposed to interrupt people, so I end up saying much less than everyone else. I have a lot of trouble doing any kind of self-promotion. I'm cringing a bit just writing this post in the first person--I don't like taking up space.

It's belatedly occurring to me (I turned 40 last year) that maybe there are some common failure modes for people who got a Quaker education and then dropped the community cold turkey afterwards. Like, maybe I stayed long enough to learn how not to be a jerk, but not long enough to get the special bonus lessons on how to function in society without being a jerk?

To be clear, I'm not filing a bug report here. My problems are mine, they come primarily from me, and I don't even really consider myself wronged by this on net. I'm just sharing and asking if this resonates with anyone.