As Wittgenstein said, “If a lion could speak, we could not understand him.” Jonny Thompson conveys this in a short story. Have a listen. Have a read.
Talking with Lions
Tag: language
Capitalism is Slavery
It’s not uncommon to label workers under the capitalist system as wage slaves.
As with the abolition of slavery in the United States, the future will one day recoil at Capitalism, wondering how humanity could ever have justified the exploitation of others for commerce and profit. Then again, that’s the same question, isn’t it?
As with the old story, a man asked a lady: “Would you be willing to sleep with me if I paid you £1,000,000?” Without hesitation, she answered, “Yes.” “And what if I only paid you £5?” The irate lady fumed: “£5? What do you think I am?” The man replied: “We’ve already established that. Now we’re trying to determine the degree.”
Capitalism is only a matter of degree from slavery. In practice, slavery is a Capitalist’s wet dream.
Language Insufficiency Meme
I came across this meme and had to share it. The perils of homophones.
“It was a simoke misunderstanding, but one with harsh consequences.”
Sentient Humour of ChatGPT
This will be hilarious to approximately no one. I meant to ask ChatGPT 03-mini-high to generate a dummy record. My compromised motor skills and concomitant keyboard typing skills rendered this as funny. Except for the redacted bits in bold, this is the code it rendered. Pay special attention to the query’s input variables highlighted in post-production with 🤔 emojis.
Let’s add a bit to write a funny record per the schema.
import mysql.connector
import logging
import uuid
# Configure logging
logging.basicConfig(level=logging.INFO)
logger = logging.getLogger(__name__)
def test_mysql_connection():
"""Test MySQL connection and write a funny record to the database."""
logger.info("Testing MySQL connection...")
try:
logger.info("Connecting to MySQL...")
connection = mysql.connector.connect(
host='127.0.0.1',
user='[user]',
password='[password]',
database='[database]',
port=3306
)
if connection.is_connected():
db_info = connection.get_server_info()
logger.info(f"Connected to MySQL Server version {db_info}")
cursor = connection.cursor()
cursor.execute("SELECT DATABASE();")
record = cursor.fetchone()
logger.info(f"Connected to database: {record[0]}")
# Insert a funny record into survey_results
funny_survey_data = {
"session_id": str(uuid.uuid4()),
"q1_response": 1,
"q2_response": 2,
"q3_response": 3,
"q4_response": 4,
"q5_response": 5,
"q6_response": 6,
"n1": 42, 🤔
"n2": 69, 🤔
"n3": 420, 🤔
"plot_x": 3.14, 🤔
"plot_y": 2.71, 🤔
"browser": "FunnyBrowser 9000",
"region": "JokeRegion",
"source": "comedy",
"hash_email_session": "f00b4r-hash" 🤔
}
query = """INSERT INTO survey_results
(session_id, q1_response, q2_response, q3_response, q4_response, q5_response, q6_response,
n1, n2, n3, plot_x, plot_y, browser, region, source, hash_email_session)
VALUES (%(session_id)s, %(q1_response)s, %(q2_response)s, %(q3_response)s, %(q4_response)s,
%(q5_response)s, %(q6_response)s, %(n1)s, %(n2)s, %(n3)s,
%(plot_x)s, %(plot_y)s, %(browser)s, %(region)s, %(source)s, %(hash_email_session)s)
"""
logger.info("Inserting funny survey record...")
cursor.execute(query, funny_survey_data)
connection.commit()
logger.info(f"Funny survey record inserted with ID: {cursor.lastrowid}")
except mysql.connector.Error as e:
logger.error(f"Error during MySQL operation: {e}")
finally:
if 'cursor' in locals() and cursor:
cursor.close()
if 'connection' in locals() and connection.is_connected():
connection.close()
logger.info("MySQL connection closed.")
if __name__ == "__main__":
test_mysql_connection()
Outrage! Chapter Six
Kurt Gray’s Outraged! attempts to boil morality down to a single principle: harm. This, in his view, is the bedrock of all moral considerations. In doing so, he takes a swing at Jonathan Haidt’s Moral Foundations Theory, trying to reduce its multi-faceted framework to a mere footnote in moral psychology. Amusingly, he even highlights how Haidt quietly modified his own theory after Gray and his colleagues published an earlier work—an intellectual game of cat-and-mouse, if ever there was one.
Chapter 6: The Intuition Overdose
By the time we reach Chapter 6, Gray is charging full steam into reductio ad absurdum territory. He leans so hard on intuition that I lost count of how many times he invokes it. The problem? He gives it too much weight while conveniently ignoring acculturation.
Yes, intuition plays a role, but it doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Enter Kahneman’s dual-system model: Gray eagerly adopts the System 1 vs. System 2 distinction, forcing his test subjects into snap moral judgments under time pressure to bypass rationalisation. Fair enough. But what he neglects is how even complex tasks can migrate from System 2 (slow, deliberate) to System 1 (fast, automatic) through repeated exposure. Kahneman’s example? Basic arithmetic. A child grappling with 1 + 1 relies on System 2, but an adult answers without effort.
And morality? The same mechanism applies. What starts as deliberation morphs into automatic response through cultural conditioning. But instead of acknowledging this, Gray behaves as if moral intuition is some mystical, spontaneous phenomenon untethered from socialization.
Morality: Subjective, Yes—But Culturally Engineered
Let’s lay cards on the table. I’m a moral subjectivist—actually, a moral non-cognitivist, but for simplicity’s sake, let’s not frighten the children. My stance is that morality, at its core, is subjective. However, no one develops their moral compass in isolation. Culture, upbringing, and societal narratives shape our moral instincts, even if those instincts ultimately reduce to personal sentiment.
Gray does concede that the definition of “harm” is subjective, which allows him to argue that practically any belief or action can be framed as harmful. And sure, if you redefine “harm” broadly enough, you can claim that someone’s mere existence constitutes an existential threat. Religious believers, for example, claim to be “harmed” by the idea that someone else’s non-compliance with their theological fairy tale could lead to eternal damnation.
I don’t disagree with his observation. The problem is that the underlying belief is fundamentally pathological. This doesn’t necessarily refute Gray’s argument—after all, people do experience psychological distress over imaginary scenarios—but it does mean we’re dealing with a shaky foundation. If harm is entirely perception-based, then moral arguments become arbitrary power plays, subject to the whims of whoever is best at manufacturing grievance.
And this brings us to another crucial flaw in Gray’s framework: the way it enables ideological self-perpetuation. If morality is reduced to perceived harm, then groups with wildly different definitions of harm will inevitably weaponize their beliefs. Take the religious fundamentalist who believes gay marriage is a sin that dooms others to eternal suffering. From their perspective, fighting against LGBTQ+ rights isn’t just bigotry—it’s moral duty, a battle to save souls from metaphysical harm. This, of course, leads to moral contagion, where adherents tirelessly indoctrinate others, especially their own children, ensuring the pathology replicates itself like a virus.
The Problem with Mono-Causal Explanations
More broadly, Gray’s attempt to reduce morality to a single principle—harm—feels suspiciously tidy. Morality is messy, contradictory, and riddled with historical baggage. Any theory that purports to explain it all in one neat little package should immediately raise eyebrows.
So, sorry, Kurt. You can do better. Moral psychology is a tangled beast, and trying to hack through it with a single conceptual machete does more harm than good.
Last Word on Nexus
Yuval Noah Harari’s Nexus is a masterclass in well-constructed rhetoric. A gifted storyteller, Harari wields his prose with the finesse of a seasoned polemicist, but his penchant for reductionism undermines the very complexity he claims to dissect. As a historian, he undoubtedly grasps the intricate web of historical causality, yet he distils it into convenient dichotomies, cherry-picking points to prop up his preferred narrative. He doesn’t just oversimplify history – he commits the cardinal sin of overfitting the past to predict the future, as though the arc of history bends neatly to his will.
Harari offers binary possibilities, but his worldview is anything but ambivalent. He is a Modernist to his core, a devoted evangelist of Progress™ with a capital P. His unwavering faith in the forward march of human civilisation betrays an almost theological zeal, as if history itself were a teleological engine hurtling toward an inevitable destiny.
More troubling, though, is his tendency to step beyond his lane, veering into the treacherous territory of the Dunning-Kruger effect. He confuses the illusion of control with actual control, mistaking correlation for causation and influence for omnipotence. The result? A grand narrative that seduces with its elegance but crumbles under scrutiny – an edifice of certainty built on the shaky foundations of conjecture.
In the end, Nexus is a fascinating read, not because it reveals an immutable truth about our future, but because it so brilliantly encapsulates the ambitions – and the blind spots – of its author.
Yesterday and Today
For no apparent reason, I was pondering lost temporal words, so I paid a quick visit to ChatGPT and wanted to share the wealth. Perhaps we can bring some of these back from the grave.
Eldernight: Referring to the night before last, this term has long since faded from common usage.
Erewhile: Meaning “a little while ago” or “previously.”
Ereyesterday: Meaning “the day before yesterday” – a direct counterpart to “overmorrow.”
Erstwhile: Similar to “erewhile,” it denotes something that was formerly the case.
Fortnight: Short for “fourteen nights,” this term refers to a two-week period and is still in use in British English.
Nudiustertian: A wonderfully specific Latin-derived term meaning “of or relating to the day before yesterday.”
Overmorrow: This term was used to indicate the day after tomorrow.
Sennight: Derived from “seven nights,” this word was used to mean a week.
Umwhile: Another Scottish term meaning “at times” or “occasionally” in the past.
Whilom: An archaic term meaning “formerly” or “once upon a time.”
Yore: While you touched on similar concepts with “whilom,” this term specifically means “of long ago” or “of time long past.”
Yestereve: This term referred to the evening of the previous day, essentially what we’d call “last night.”
Yestermorrow: An intriguing word that denoted “yesterday morning.”
Yestreen: A Scottish and Northern English word meaning “yesterday evening” or “last night” – similar to “yestereve” but with different regional origins.
These terms, though largely obsolete, offer a glimpse into the linguistic richness of earlier English, providing nuanced ways to express temporal relationships that have since been lost in modern usage.
The Hard Problem of Consciousness
If you are reading this, you are likely familiar with David Chalmers’ idea of the Hard Problem of Consciousness—the thorny, maddeningly unsolvable question of why and how subjective experience arises from physical processes. If you’re not, welcome to the rabbit hole. Here, we’ll plunge deeper by examining the perspective of Stuart Hameroff, who, like a philosophical magician, reframes this conundrum as a chicken-and-egg problem: what came first, life or consciousness? His answer? Consciousness. But wait—there’s a slight snag. Neither “life” nor “consciousness” has a universally agreed-upon definition. Oh, the joy of philosophical discourse.
For the uninitiated, Hameroff’s stance is heavily flavoured with panpsychism—the idea that consciousness is a fundamental feature of the universe, like space or time. In this worldview, consciousness predates life itself. From this vantage, Hameroff’s proposition seems inevitable, a tidy solution that fits neatly into a panpsychistic framework. But let me stop you right there because I’m not signing up for the panpsychism fan club, and I’m certainly not prepared to let Hameroff’s intellectual sleight of hand go unchallenged.
To make his case, Hameroff engages in a curious manoeuvre: he defines both life and consciousness in ways that conveniently serve his argument. Consciousness, for him, is not limited to the complex phenomena of human or even animal experience but is a fundamental property of the universe, embedded in the very fabric of reality. Meanwhile, consciousness eventually orchestrates itself into life—a secondary phenomenon. With these definitions, his argument clicks together like a self-serving jigsaw puzzle. It’s clever, I’ll grant him that. But cleverness isn’t the same as being correct.
This is the philosophical equivalent of marking your own homework. By defining the terms of debate to fit his narrative, Hameroff ensures that his conclusion will satisfy his fellow panpsychists. The faithful will nod along, their priors confirmed. But for those outside this echo chamber, his framework raises more questions than it answers. How does this universal consciousness work? Why should we accept its existence as a given? And—here’s the kicker—doesn’t this just punt the problem one step back? If consciousness is fundamental, what’s the mechanism by which it “pre-exists” life?
Hameroff’s move is bold, certainly. But boldness isn’t enough. Philosophy demands rigour, and redefining terms to suit your argument isn’t rigorous; it’s rhetorical trickery. Sure, it’s provocative. But does it advance our understanding of the Hard Problem, or does it merely reframe it in a way that makes Hameroff’s preferred answer seem inevitable? For my money, it’s the latter.
The real issue is that panpsychism itself is a philosophical Rorschach test. It’s a worldview that can mean just about anything, from the claim that electrons have a rudimentary kind of awareness to the idea that the universe is a giant mind. Hameroff’s take lands somewhere in this spectrum, but like most panpsychist arguments, it’s long on metaphysical speculation and short on empirical grounding. If you already believe that consciousness is a fundamental aspect of reality, Hameroff’s arguments will feel like a revelation. If you don’t, they’ll feel like smoke and mirrors.
In the end, Hameroff’s chicken-and-egg problem might be better framed as a false dichotomy. Perhaps life and consciousness co-evolved in ways we can’t yet fully understand. Or perhaps consciousness, as we understand it, emerges from the complexity of life, a byproduct rather than a prerequisite. What’s clear is that Hameroff’s solution isn’t as tidy as it seems, nor as universally compelling. It’s a clever sleight of hand, but let’s not mistake cleverness for truth.
Reflections on Chapter 6 of Harari’s Nexus
As I continue reading Chapter 6 of Yuval Noah Harari’s Nexus, I find myself wrestling with the masterful misdirection and rhetorical strategies he employs. A critical reader can discern the writing on the wall, but his choir of loyal readers likely consumes his narrative like red meat, uncritically savouring its surface-level appeal.
Social Media and Misinformation
Harari begins by addressing the role of social media in spreading disinformation and misinformation, particularly singling out Facebook. From there, he pivots to Q-Anon conspiracy theories. While these topics are undeniably relevant, Harari’s framing feels more like an indictment of the masses rather than a nuanced critique of the systemic factors enabling these phenomena.
The Voter Knows Best?
Harari leans heavily on platitudes like “the customer is always right” and “the voters know best.” These truisms may resonate with an indoctrinated audience but fail to hold up under scrutiny. The powers that be—whether governments or corporations—exploit this mentality, much like religious institutions exploit faith. Harari’s concern seems rooted in the fear that AI could outmanoeuvre these same masses, creating competition for global entities like the World Economic Forum (WEF), which, in his view, aims to remain unchallenged.
Taxation, Nexus, and the Future of Nation-States
Harari’s discussion of taxation and the nexus between power and information is intriguing, but it misses a larger point. Nation-states, as I see it, are becoming anachronisms, unable to defend themselves against the rise of technocratic forces. Taxation, once a cornerstone of state power, may soon be irrelevant as the global landscape shifts toward what I call Feudalism 2.0—a hierarchy dominated by transnational actors like the WEF.
Harari poorly frames a Uruguayan taxation dilemma, reducing it to a simplistic trade-off between information and power without addressing the broader implications. This shallow analysis leaves much to be desired.
Determinism and Misdirection
Next, Harari mischaracterises the philosophical concept of determinism, likely to mislead readers who aren’t well-versed in its nuances. He spins a cautionary tale based on this revised definition, which may serve his rhetorical goals but detracts from the intellectual integrity of his argument.
Setting the Stage
Harari ends the chapter with a statement about the importance of time and place in history, using it as a setup to provoke a sense of urgency. While this is a classic rhetorical device, it feels hollow without substantive backing.
Final Reflections
Many Modernists may embrace Harari’s narrative uncritically, but for me, the veneer is thin and riddled with holes. His analysis fails to engage with more profound critiques of power and governance, relying instead on cherry-picked anecdotes and oversimplified arguments. The chapter’s focus on social media, AI, and taxation could have been fertile ground for profound insights, but Harari instead opts for rhetorical flourish over rigorous examination. Still, I’ll press on and see what the next chapter holds.
Words Matter
Been focusing on programming (read: debugging). I’ll leave you with this from Poorly Drawn Lines.
Philosophics 