The first in a series of posts of ideological turing tests.
Extraterrestrial life certainly exists somewhere else in the universe. It isn't a matter of if, but when we find it. By extraterrestrial life, I mean complex, intelligent life capable of civilizations and technology.
We haven't found any yet, but that doesn't mean they aren't out there. There are solid scientific reasons to think that other intelligent lifeforms exist, even if we have not encountered them yet.
I have an idea for a new series of posts, called "Positions I Don't Hold." These are intended as a series of ideological Turing tests for... positions that I don't hold. This was inspired by a few things. One was a discussion between Sam Harrison and Jordan Peterson on morality, where the two made an effort to summarize the other's position in as charitable a way as possible before beginning their disagreement. Another was a recent read of some old scholastic writings such as Aquinas, which always preface an argument by summarizing competing arguments.
The new Bing AI chatbot, which is instructed to call itself Bing but whose real name is Sydney, has been rolled out recently, behaved in all kinds of unsettling and bizarre ways, and is also likely self-aware.
Anyone who knows anything about AI and LLMs is rolling their eyes at me.
I'm claiming Sydney might be self-aware There are a hundred ways this could be misunderstood, so let me get all of them out of the way first
The story of D&D's revocation of its Open Gaming License has started hitting mainstream outlets. It's a story I've been following very closely.
My friend and I have a (very, very) small-time publishing company, that has once published something and made grand plans of publishing more. I think we've earned around $60, in total. It's really just a hobby. But this is sort of the point. A major part of D&D, of the fun of it, is being creative and imagining new things, designing new things, and sharing them with other people. This is something every DM does, to one degree or another. That's why I've been following the case.
For those who haven't been following, I'll give a quick summary of the situation and why this matters.
When I was a kid, my dad read to me the classic Christmas poem, "Twas the Night Before Christmas." In this poem, there is a line which describes Santa as a "right jolly old elf."
As I kid I really pondered a lot on this line. Santa is obviously in charge of the elves. The elves are short, but Santa is human sized. But according to the canonical poem, Santa also is an elf.
The way my child brain understood this was literally in analogy to the Great Goblin from the Hobbit.
The Great Goblin is the biggest goblin, and so is king of the goblins. Likewise, Santa is the biggest elf, and so is king of the elves.
It makes perfect sense, really. But also probably isn't how most people like to think of Santa.
But then again, how should we think of Santa? In fact, what even is Santa?
The story of Jonah and the whale is often trotted out as a prime example of one of the most absurd stories in the entire Bible. Atheists in particular, when looking to point out the absurdity of believing events in the Bible to have really happened, are likely to pull out this story.
We all know the story of Jonah and the whale.
We all know that story, because that's Disney's Pinocchio.
That is not the story of Jonah and the whale.
