Kenshi

Lucky for you the linked article explains the acronym!

Wait, you’re not one of those people who only reads headlines, are you?

Unfortunately not:

Here’s a more in-depth article about what happened.

What about Ween?

That is very frustrating, to be sure.

However, the ways we’ve begun to think about sapience are so intriguing, as well. We’re beginning to move away from the anthropocentric view that humans are the only sapient creatures. Corvids, elephants, and dolphins probably already make the cut (among other vertebrates) according to the current definition of sapience.

Ants, too, which makes me wonder about the potential for deepening our understand of group/swarm sapience, as well. True “hive minds”, etc. Fascinating stuff!

So much of our understanding of the natural world comes from comparing creatures to ourselves through surface level observation. The more we can relate to an organism, as we perceive it, the more likely we are to elevate its status or “worthiness”, it seems. Now, in the presence of modern technology, we’re discovering how little we actually knew about how the world around us works.

This all ties strongly into historic religious world-views, and elevation of humans to god-like (or god’s chosen) status. So much to unpack!

Haven’t we moved into the belief that many/most multicellular organisms are sentient?

Sentience is the ability to experience feelings and sensations. It may not necessarily imply higher cognitive functions such as awareness, reasoning, or complex thought processes. ^{https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentience}

The studies on plant ‘cognition’ and their ‘nervous system’ are not for naught. They have produced doubt. Some researchers are suddenly unsure about the status of plants and this doubt is necessary to get researchers engaged in and to acquire funding for research into plant sentience. The question of plant sentience is one of those fascinating question where, whichever answer is true we will all be in awe. If plants are sentient, then we need to rethink much of our current understanding in neuroscience. How could such a vascular system, different in so many ways from our own nervous system, give rise to consciousness? If plants are not sentient, then we are witness to a self-maintaining entity capable of complex cognitive behaviour without the presence of consciousness. ^{https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10539-024-09953-1}

This topic fascinates me. I’m not trying to be confrontational or argumentative, sorry if it comes off that way.

That’s totally fair, and I agree with you. I probably shouldn’t have used the phrase “high form of humor”. I more meant “worthwhile form of humor”. Even that doesn’t really encapsulate what I mean.

I don’t know. It can be hard to separate brainrot from intelligent comedy, and I laugh at both, myself. I’m not the comedy police or anything, I just don’t want to end up here:

That’s me! Cringe and proud.

You’re not being a jerk, you’re being pedantic.

Ignorant is absolutely the better word, and I should have used it.

I think, however, that people are far more capable of gaining intelligence than we give them credit for. I don’t believe that IQ is assigned at birth, and it’s been shown that the entire idea of IQ testing is extremely flawed.

There are people born with learning disabilities, of course, but that’s a whole other conversation.

Shitposting is just pretending to be stupid/racist/shitty for laughs/attention, right? Pretty low form of humor, if you ask me (no one did), but I’m also guessing a lot of shitposters aren’t just pretending.

I like a laugh as much as the next person, but we can’t sit around going “Why are people in this country so fucking stupid/racist/shitty?” while simultaneously elevating “acting” stupid to some high form of humor. You see how that’s counterproductive, right?

“Infidelity does not consist in believing, or in disbelieving; it consists in professing to believe what he does not believe. It is impossible to calculate the moral mischief, if I may so express it, that mental lying has produced in society. When a man has so far corrupted and prostituted the chastity of his mind, as to subscribe his professional belief to things he does not believe, he has prepared himself for the commission of every other crime.” - Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason

“Any community that gets its laughs by pretending to be idiots will eventually be flooded by actual idiots who mistakenly believe that they’re in good company.” - Jason Garrett-Glaser

As much as I love these quotes, I think it’s important to qualify them:

Everyone is born stupid, but people can be educated. If we want an educated populace, we must put in the work to create functional systems of education, and celebrate intelligence as a society. It’ll be hard work, and there are plenty of people out there who would prefer to see the masses remain stupid.

“The way Americans regard sports heroes versus intellectuals speaks volumes” An article by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

“There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.” ― Isaac Asimov

I don’t entirely disagree with you, here. My concern is that, when engaging with the world in a nuanced (non-dualistic) way, there is rarely a solidly defined “yes or no”, “good or bad” answer.

Evidence can point to positive and negative points of nearly any given thing. Agreeing on the weight of each point is going to dramatically color a given person’s idea of whether something is a net positive or a net negative. This is why I asked you, earlier, about what sort of evidence you’d need to see to sway your opinion.

Boiling it all down to rational or irrational is a fool’s errand in the absence of objective truth.

I’m not going to waste my time on this unless you can answer my very direct question, above.

I’ve been convinced through a great deal of reading over the course of many years. For me to compile it all for someone who by all indications is not receptive to having their opinion changed would be a fool’s errand.

Where did I claim that DEI is rational or irrational? DEI is an evidence-based practice.

Ed: Be sure to look at who you’re engaging with. I have not “changed my argument” as I have only just begun discussing this here.

Never assume rationality in an irrational world. We don’t live in econ 101 class where the assumption of rational actors is used to simplify equations for freshmen.

Putting Rational Actors in Their Place: Economics and Phenomenology

Law and Behavioral Science: Removing the Rationality Assumption from Law and Economics

What sort of evidence would it take to convince you that DEI programs have been a net positive for US businesses?

Sorry to be a bummer, but that’s the truth.

I hope you do read it! It’s not the most brilliant prose ever written, but it’s a nice bit of techno-optimism (once you get through the first half) that really impacted me, and my beliefs about what the future could be, when I first read it a couple of decades ago.

Marshall Brain’s “Manna” fits this bill, in my opinion. You can read the whole novella on his website, but I don’t know how long it’ll be available, as Marshall killed himself last November.

Rest In Peace, Marshall.

Objective truth, eh? Tell me more!

So let me follow your logic, then.

I’m saying I’m dumb just to “sound like an intellectual”. But saying I’m dumb actually doesn’t make me sound like an intellectual, like you think I think. I just am dumb, like I’ve been saying all this time, genuinely, with no audience other than you on a dead thread.

Whew. That’s a pretzel if I ever saw one.

Have you ever considered that there might be people out there who don’t think they’re as smart as you seem believe that you are?

I’m not an intellectual. I’m a 40-something man who has seen some shit and learned a lot, but never had the luxury of a college education. Of course I’d like to improve myself, who wouldn’t? For me that means acknowledging that I’m not as smart as I wish I were.

That said, if you wanna exchange addresses we could be real life pen-pals. I’m enjoying talking with you. You’re not as dumb as you think I am.