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Tech Billionaires Are Asking Scientists For Help To Break Humans Out of Computer Simulation (businessinsider.com)
Many believe that we live in a computer simulation. But it takes a billionaire and his money to ask scientists to help break us out of the simulation. The New Yorker recently did a profile about Y Combinator's Sam Altman. In the story, Altman discusses his theories about being controlled by technology and delves into the simulation theory. From an article on The New Yorker: Many people in Silicon Valley have become obsessed with the simulation hypothesis, the argument that what we experience as reality is in fact fabricated in a computer; two tech billionaires have gone so far as to secretly engage scientists to work on breaking us out of the simulation. Business Insider adds: The piece doesn't give any clue as to who those two billionaires are -- although it's easy to hazard a few guesses at who they might be, like Musk himself or Altman's friend Peter Thiel -- but it's fascinating to see how seriously people are taking this theory. According to Musk, it's the most popular topic of conversation right now.Earlier this year, at Code Conference, Elon Musk said there's "one in billions" chance we're not living in a computer simulation.
to have so much money that you're completely and utterly disconnected from reality. Idiots.
Seriously people. This is reality. Deal with it. Just freaking get over it. Just because the universe doesn't fit into your limited imagination is no reason to suspect that we are in a simulation or that an invisible man in the sky created the world, or that we are reincarnated from aliens chained to a volcano.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
It's steam engines when it's steam engine time
People use the predominant zeitgeist as a model to understand everything.
In Victorian times, we had steam engines and the blind watchmaker. In the 1910's everything was electricity this and xyz-rays that. Today it's all digitalizamizated technomolology and iPhones.
That and these billionaires think their smarts in one realm of knowledge make them experts in everything everywhere all the time.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
We are all aware that the senses can be deceived, the eyes fooled. But how can we be sure our senses are not being deceived at any particular time, or even all the time? Might I just be a brain in a tank somewhere, tricked all my life into believing in the events of this world by some insane computer? And does my life gain or lose meaning based on my reaction to such solipsism?
Project PYRRHO, Specimen 46, Vat 7
Activity Recorded M.Y. 2302.22467
TERMINATION OF SPECIMEN ADVISED
"Earlier this year, at Code Conference, Elon Musk said there's "one in billions" chance we're not living in a computer simulation."
Elon Musk said it, I believe it, and that settles it. (rolls eyes)
This is insanely stupid. Entities simulated in computer programs can't "break out" of the simulation: if you stop the simulation, they cease to exist.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
The desire for religion must really be genetically programmed if influencial bigwigs like this dream up a new one after the old ones have been debunked.
Truely amazing.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
So if you believe in God, the science world think's you're crazy/stupid, but if you believe in a programmer of the universe, it's totally cool and many of them agree. Gotcha.
The smart move is to try and figure out how to access the admin console and object browser. Then, instead of 'escaping' to a reality you're not equipped to survive, you can make this shit show into your own personal paradise.
One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors - Plato
You seemed to be objectively bashing trump, then you defended Clinton and lost all credibility.
Clinton is the only credible candidate for POTUS. That doesn't mean she isn't a deeply flawed person. As a moderate conservative, I have no one else to vote for.
If I exist in this simulated reality, then I only exist because of the simulation. Shut down the simulation and I cease to exist.
This.
Tech billionaires and a lot of slashdot users hear "You are living in a simulation" and they think "Neo in the matrix" rather than "Agent in the matrix"
I think this is because they are dumb.
"His name was James Damore."
Personally, the double slit experiment is all the proof I need that something is controlling the world we live in. How else would those damn particles realize something is watching them?
One day, science and spirituality will meet and the answers that science seeks to answer may very well in fact startle and scare us. Quantum theory may very well help us break through the confines of this matter filled prison.
Define "credible" in any objective way.
By all my measures, she has failed at just about everything she's tried, apart from running for office. And she only got elected because her husband was President of the US. There is just about no reason to conclude she is qualified for the job.
As a moderate conservative, you can vote third Party, and register your vote as a protest against the other two. IF enough people break free from the false dichotomy of the two party system, perhaps we can actually get worthy candidates. But, go ahead and waste your vote on the "lessor of two evils" believing that is your only choice. In the end, you'll get the devil you know and you'll be guilty of contributing to whatever ills she creates for our country. Imagine, three more SCOTUS judges hell bent on dismantling what remains of our Constitution. The first Amendment is going, the second is for sure gone, the 4th, 5th and the rest are swept away as fast as they can. ObamaCare fails and is replaced by single payer, and everyone's healthcare is screwed up in ways that only Government can (think VA for everyone!)
If you think Clinton is the "only" credible candidate, you're wrong, she isn't credible at all.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Like that failed business man Warren Buffet who lost in one day.
Warren Buffet suffered a paper loss on a stock that he held for the long term. If he was to sell his position in Wells Fargo, he would probably have substantial profits over his initial investment.
Trump has already said he outsources due to the way American law is structured and that he plans on working to change the law to fix that.
American law doesn't require that Trump outsource his work overseas. There are many businesses in the US are that proud to bear the label "Made in USA."
There are a lot of ignorant Slashdotters with absolutely zero knowledge of how business actually works.
You're obviously one of them.
His flaw is assuming that his assumptions are even close to being accurate. The problem with these kinds of thought processes, is that they are fraught with limited thinking. Do you know how hard it is to keep exponential growth going for any length of time? And he wants it going for ... thousands of years. He has no idea what it will take to make that exponential growth keep going indefinitely forever, nor the consequences of that growth on humanity.
There are way too many assumptions, way too many unproven constants. He isn't as smart as he thinks he is, and that is where the problems start for his "simulation theory". I actually understand that I couldn't begin to theorize what things might exist in 20 years, let alone 1000, 5000, or 10,000 years down the road.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
You just have to find a glitch in the matrix
If I had a glitchy matrix I'd monitor people to notice when they notice things, and then use that information to issue quick patches.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
And you link to liberal rag Newsweek which was sold for one dollar. Talk about bad business and living in a liberal echo chamber.
Again, you are entitled to your fact-free opinion. That doesn't change the reality that Trump is a horrible businessman who would make a horrible president.
Holding a job and sucking at it is not a credible qualification for a promotion. Even the Peter Principle in it's usual formulation implies that once you find the level someone is incompetent at you have promoted them sufficiently.
That's actually a quite believable interpretation of the Bible. Player starts out being a genocidal maniac, playing with all the god-level powers they have, sending plagues of locus and flooding the entire planet just to see what will happen. Then we get to the New Testament, where the player is kinda bored just breaking stuff and decides to try to build a nice world.
It's basically everyone's first game of Sim City.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
to say she has failed as you have only shows a vast and profound ignorance on your part.
but that's true of most of your comments, including the rest of the one you just made.
though if you insist on the evils viewpoint, then she isn't the lesser of two evils. rather she's the lesser of 4 evils, Johnson and stein included.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
There are those who believe that life here began out there, far across the universe
Or reality could have been created 5 seconds ago, with your memories of the past already prefabricated in your mind.
Unfortunately, given the mathematical realities of the "first past the post" voting system we're forced to work within, the dichotomy is not false. It's possible to change which parties are in power, as has happened several times in the history of the country, but the only stable configurations are either one or two strongly dominant parties.
I'm all for building a strong competing party to replace one of the current ones with something more populist, or even just less corrupt (though that's always a transitory condition, quickly remedied once it wields power worth corrupting) but that's a long-term project that requires dedicating considerable resources to building "brand awareness" and enthusiasm among the electorate, and one that's not appreciably aided by voting for candidates that have no chance of actually getting elected (well, not beyond reaching the minimums required for the party to gain access to public funds and other legal hurdles)
By making a protest vote, knowing it will have no direct effect on who wins the election, you'll be guilty of contributing to whatever ills *whoever* wins inflicts - including if it's the "greater evil" that you refused to vote against.
If you really want change, then go out and participate in activist organizations trying to either build viable third party support, or establish less easily captured voting systems such as instant runoff voting. As long as your only contribution is casting a ballot every couple of years, your real options are limited to either voting for the lesser of evils, or abstaining (or protest-voting), and thus willingly surrendering your support to whoever happens to win.
And lets be honest here - no matter how many viable parties are actually on the ballot, you'll *always* be voting for the lesser evil, because *nobody* is going to agree with you 100%. There will always be a compromise to be made, and whether that compromise falls below the arbitrary line you call "evil" or not, is a distinction that exists only within your imagination.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
And they're nuts. Humanity has a solid evolutionary record on this planet. Life might have originated elsewhere, but it became human here. If humanity exists elsewhere in the universe, it almost certainly originated here and was exported, either via alien influence, or some improbable human culture that developed the ability to travel between worlds without leaving any archaeological evidence. The only other option is convergent evolution - and to converge enough to be called human (say, able to interbreed?) is so outlandishly unlikely as to make the alternatives seem positively mundane in comparison.
Yeah, yeah. Battlestar. Whoosh. etc.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
Well in the reality that is everyones other than yours she is clearly a psychopathic power crazed loon, a pathological liar, a clear security risk, already in the pockets of foreign powers, and a fucking out and out criminal that is currently under investigation for possible treason and would have already been in jail by now had she not also have had the Director of the FBI and the Attorney General in her pocket because they are (almost) as corrupt as her.
Unless you live in a swing state, "protest votes" are the only way to effect any change. Voting for either major party in a non-swing state neither changes who wins the election nor sends any kind of feedback inducing any party to change. You're just voting for business as usual, whatever that should happen to be.
Voting for a third party doesn't influence who wins the election either, but it influences the statistics that the major parties use to target their platforms to capture those lost votes.
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
> He failed to get the votes.
Yea, that's not really disputed. The issue at hand does involve WHY, however, and the supposedly-neutral DNC actively strategizing against him is literally what everyone is complaining about with "establishment" candidates this year.
It's a fact that the DNC CFO was in emails trying to get play on Sanders' religious status ("My Southern Baptist peeps would draw a big difference between a Jew and an atheist.").
It's a fact that Schlutz shat all over him in emails that clearly showed her allegiance against him, and was promptly promoted into the Hillary campaign as soon as she resigned (arguably, she was already part of it, yukyuk yuk!).
It's a fact that Hillary's lawyer emails the DNC with advice that sounds like they just coordinate like, all the time, against Sanders.
It definitely proved what everyone on both sides suspects- the amount of power in these closed groups is large, and their fairness (at least on the Democrat side) is just a farce. If Trump didn't have huge support on the right, he would have been erased as well.
So no, Sanders couldn't get all the votes. But it is clear he was never playing by the same rules as Hillary, and that groups that should have helped him or stayed neutral instead did the opposite.
I get that you are going to vote for Hillary, and it is in your best emotional interest to downplay the fact that everyone around her always seems to be up to some shady shit. But there's really not much room on this topic: the emails show a lot of bullshit, and they are presumably just the tip of the iceberg, the only part we got to see due to the actions of some hacker. It doesn't take much creativity to extrapolate from what we do have. This was a rigged game. It was unethical at the very least, and I wouldn't be surprised if something criminal popped up at some point, either.