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Ben (Berlin)
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A furry living in Berlin

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3Ben (Berlin)'s Shortform
4d
1
Ben (Berlin)'s Shortform
Ben (Berlin)4d10

New year system suggested at micro-post-LWCW meet-up:

Ante-Covid/Dopo-Covid, or AC/DC for short, with the zero point in Dec 2019.

Plus points:

+ Everyone can agree that this happened, and wasn't just religious fan-fiction taken too seriously
+ Everyone can agree when this happened, not arguing about which random astronomical event was mistaken for a star or which of the various Kings Herod was around for the events
+ Has a year zero
+ Doesn't mix up two different languages like AD/BC does
+ Alphabetical order: AC comes before DC, instead of the silly inverted order of putting BC before AD
+ Obvious choice for music in New Year celebrations
+ Saves space by allowing return to 2-digit years

Minus points:

- No longer has all of the first four letters of the Latin alphabet
- Making dec-ember the first month is even weirder than it being the twelfth

[Mood: silly]

Reply1
"It isn't magic"
Ben (Berlin)3mo150

Aye.

The one I notice the most is people saying "cows will still have to be milked", without having realised automatic milking machines arrived in the early 90s.

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"It isn't magic"
Ben (Berlin)3mo10

Cross-posted from my blog on github: https://benwheatley.github.io/blog/2025/06/22-13.21.36.html

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The Zombie Preacher of Somerset
Ben (Berlin)4mo30

Related anecdote:

In my 20s, but not before or since, I noticed sometimes experiencing an altered state if I was awake too long — not reliably when awake too long, but only when.

It wasn't tiredness, at least not as I otherwise experience it, but rather it was as if everything ceased to be real and me part of that reality, that there was no longer a "me" watching the Cartesian theatre of the mind, that the Cartesian theatre was playing to an empty house. I was able to notice this and comment on it to others while in this state, and obviously form memories.

And then I was back to normal in the morning.

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Applying traditional economic thinking to AGI: a trilemma
Ben (Berlin)8mo1-2

(…Assuming free markets, and rule of law, and AGI not taking over and wiping out humanity, and so on. I think those are highly dubious assumptions, but let’s not get into that here!)


Assuming all is correct, isn't the answer therefore: "at least one of these assumptions must be false"?

(Personally I have long suspected that free markets are a gross oversimplification, but I'm not an economist; and even if I was, with those three options I've got reason to wish for that specific option)

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My hour of memoryless lucidity
Ben (Berlin)1y20

I wish I'd thought of that with my mother's dementia; I noticed a similar effect on the scale of minutes (hers was already quite severe by the time of the diagnosis), but I didn't plan anything and I didn't take enough notes at the time, so all I have for this is the anecdote.

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3Ben (Berlin)'s Shortform
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91"It isn't magic"
3mo
17