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Horns
by
It was like wondering how evil had come into the world or what happens to a person after he dies: an interesting philosophical exercise, but also curiously pointless, since evil and death happened, regardless of the why and the how and the
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Petra: hiatus, finding it hard to communicate and 1 other person liked this
“Even if popular culture has long enjoyed turning him into an object of mockery, we still tend to believe that the Nazi machine was ruthlessly efficient, and that the great dictator spent most of his time...well, dictating things. So it’s worth remembering that Hitler was actually an incompetent, lazy egomaniac and his government was an absolute clown show. In fact, this may even have helped his rise to power, as he was consistently underestimated by the German elite. Before he became chancellor, many of his opponents had dismissed him as a joke for his crude speeches and tacky rallies. He was a “pathetic dunderhead” according to one magazine editor; another wrote that his party was a “society of incompetents” and that people should not “overestimate the fairground party.”
― Humans: A Brief History of How We F*cked It All Up
― Humans: A Brief History of How We F*cked It All Up
“Indeed, many movies about artificial intelligence are so divorced from scientific reality that one suspects they are just allegories of completely different concerns. Thus the 2015 movie Ex Machina seems to be about an AI expert who falls in love with a female robot only to be duped and manipulated by her. But in reality, this is not a movie about the human fear of intelligent robots. It is a movie about the male fear of intelligent women, and in particular the fear that female liberation might lead to female domination. Whenever you see a movie about an AI in which the AI is female and the scientist is male, it’s probably a movie about feminism rather than cybernetics. For why on earth would an AI have a sexual or a gender identity? Sex is a characteristic of organic multicellular beings. What can it possibly mean for a non-organic cybernetic being?”
― 21 Lessons for the 21st Century
― 21 Lessons for the 21st Century
“Humans see patterns in the world, we can communicate this to other humans, and we have the capacity to imagine futures that don’t yet exist: how if we just changed this thing, then that thing would happen, and the world would be a slightly better place. The only trouble is … well, we’re not terribly good at any of those things. Any honest assessment of humanity’s previous performance on those fronts reads like a particularly brutal annual review from a boss who hates you. We imagine patterns where they don’t exist. Our communication skills are, uh, sometimes lacking. And we have an extraordinarily poor track record of failing to realise that changing this thing will also lead to the other thing, and that even worse thing, and oh God no now this thing is happening how do we stop it.”
― Humans: A Brief History of How We F*cked It All Up
― Humans: A Brief History of How We F*cked It All Up
“In our choices lie our fate”
― Pan's Labyrinth: The Labyrinth of the Faun
― Pan's Labyrinth: The Labyrinth of the Faun
“First, if you want reliable information, pay good money for it. If you get your news for free, you might well be the product.”
― 21 Lessons for the 21st Century
― 21 Lessons for the 21st Century
Our Shared Shelf
— 228665 members
— last activity Aug 30, 2024 05:40AM
OUR SHARED SHELF IS CURRENTLY DORMANT AND NOT MANAGED BY EMMA AND HER TEAM. Dear Readers, As part of my work with UN Women, I have started reading ...more
OUR SHARED SHELF IS CURRENTLY DORMANT AND NOT MANAGED BY EMMA AND HER TEAM. Dear Readers, As part of my work with UN Women, I have started reading ...more
The American Novel Since 1945
— 277 members
— last activity Aug 30, 2024 01:27PM
Yale posted a series of lectures entitled, "The American Novel Since 1945." This group will follow this lecture series. Your Host: Lisa of Troy (htt ...more
Yale posted a series of lectures entitled, "The American Novel Since 1945." This group will follow this lecture series. Your Host: Lisa of Troy (htt ...more
HORROR or HEAVEN
— 315 members
— last activity 14 minutes ago
Welcome to Horror or Heaven, a reading group combining horror, science fiction, thrillers and mystery. Dig yourself a grave and explore the depths of ...more
Welcome to Horror or Heaven, a reading group combining horror, science fiction, thrillers and mystery. Dig yourself a grave and explore the depths of ...more
Tanja’s 2023 Year in Books
Take a look at Tanja’s Year in Books. The good, the bad, the long, the short—it’s all here.
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